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“There will almost certainly be an increase in the number of injuries due to travel-related issues,” Fauchi told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
He added: “We can witness a big boom” in two or three weeks. “We don’t want to intimidate people, but this is the reality.”
Fauci pointed to an ominous trend, with the Christmas holidays approaching and more travel at the end of the year.
The United States registered 266,000 deaths from the virus, which is the most affected country in the world, and with a cooler climate, the daily death figures are approaching their worst levels in April.
Fauci’s comments came as the US media reported that the first shipments of the Pfizer vaccine against Corona, one of the first vaccines said to be highly effective along with the Moderna vaccine, arrived in the United States from the Pfizer laboratory in Belgium.
The Wall Street Journal and other outlets reported that Pfizer was using charter flights to prep the vaccine for rapid distribution once it was approved in the United States, which is expected before December 10.
The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which were said to be safe and possibly up to 95 percent effective, were a ray of hope after months of sad news.
The chief of testing for the US Department of Health, Admiral Brett Gerwier, told CNN that vaccines end the epidemic, this is how we get out of the epidemic, the light is at the end of the tunnel.
But like Fauci, Gerwier expressed deep concern over the coming months, saying that “hospital admissions have peaked at around 95,000.”
He continued: “About 20 percent of all people in hospitals are infected with Covid 19, so it is a really dangerous time.”
Gerwier said vaccination may take until the second or third quarter of next year to include most Americans, but the substantial benefits will come much sooner.
By vaccinating the most vulnerable people, he said, “we can definitely get 80 percent of the benefit from the vaccine by immunizing a small percentage of the population.”
