Dr. Fauci Says New Strains Must Be Taken Seriously

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious and disease expert, said on Sunday that people should take the new strain of COVID-19 very seriously.

There are reports of different strains of COVID-19 detected in different countries. These new strains are linked to the spiked of COVID-19 infections in countries like the United Kingdom and South Africa.

Recently, scientists also warned that vaccines may not work against the new strains.

Dr. Fauci Warns the Public

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's leading disease and an infectious expert said on Sunday that people should take the more contagious strain of the coronavirus that has emerged in southeastern England "very seriously" according to a published article in The Hill.

Even though the new strain that was detected in the United Kingdom is not the same as with South Africa and other countries, they have the same characteristics. The virus is now more transmissible or more contagious and targets young individuals.

Public health officials are now examining the new strain very intensively. They aim and focus to answer questions like: "Does it make someone more ill? Is it a more serious virus in the sense of virulence? And the answer is, it doesn't appear to be that way."

It can be remembered that Dr. Fauci discouraged to ban travelers coming from countries with the presence of the new strains of the virus during his interview with CNN's "State of the Union". At that time, he said that the government could do some measures like requiring travelers to provide the negative result or COVID-19 test.

However, Fauci declined to answer whether it was a mistake not to require negative tests from British travelers earlier, telling CNN's Dana Bash, "Obviously, I think the move to put some form of restriction on travel - and restriction could either be blocking out travel completely, which the decision was made not to do that.

He also explained, "But I think it's prudent and a good idea to do some form of testing, and not let somebody on the plane from the U.K. unless they have a documented negative COVID-19 test."

Fauci Confident that Vaccines Will Work

Dr. Anthony Fauci said that he is confident the present vaccines will work against the virus. He asserted that their British counterparts have expressed confidence that existing vaccines will be equally effective against the new strain but Dr. Fauci added "we're going to be doing the studies ourselves."

Fauci explained, "We're getting isolates of it, making combination of viruses, to be able to directly test, getting sera from people who we have vaccinated, and see if it still neutralizes this new strain, this mutant strain that's coming from the U.K., as well as from South Africa."

What is clear right now is that the new strain of the virus is 70 percent more contagious but there are limited studies if the new strains cause severe symptoms or not.