Appearing on NewsNation’s Morning In America today, Dr. Anthony Fauci was interviewed by host Adrienne Bankert to discuss the state of COVID with the Omicron variant being the dominant variant in the US, CDC’s quarantine time change, and child COVID vaccinations.
On the topic of child COVID vaccinations, Dr. Fauci rightly criticizes parents who don’t vaccinate their children against COVID with this pithy statement: It “doesn’t make any sense.”
Char’Nese Turner at NewsNation Now on parents not allowing their kids to get the COVID vaccination:
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that some of the rationale parents use to keep their child unvaccinated “doesn’t make any sense.”
“We vaccinate children for a number of childhood diseases where the mortality of those diseases is far less than the mortality and the morbidity of COVID-19,” Fauci said on “Morning in America” on Thursday.
“It’s the responsibility of the parent to protect their child,” Fauci said. “You get as many children and as many adults as you possibly can, because each individual needs to be protected, and the more individuals that are protected, the better society does in controlling the outbreak.”
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“Virtually all, not 100% but close to that, of the children who are seriously ill in a hospital from COVID-19 are children whose parents decided they did not want to vaccinate them. That is avoidable,” Fauci said.
Facui says the country’s best defense for children is vaccination. He urged parents to “think about the individual safety of the children.”
From the 12.30.2021 edition of NewsNation’s Morning In America:
Also, during his appearance on NewsNation’s Morning In America, Fauci defended the reduction of the CDC quarantine for asymptomatic people from 10 to 5 days, mainly on the basis of keeping society running.
Char’Nese Turner and Katie Smith at NewsNation Now:
Fauci joined “Morning in America” on Thursday to discuss the country’s plan for mitigating the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19 and to answer NewsNation viewer questions live. He also elaborated on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s changing recommendations for asymptomatic patients, noting that the shorter isolation period could help keep “society running.”
“There is no magic number” of vaccinations or cases to signal the end of the pandemic, Fauci said. “It’s when the level of … virus is so low in society that it doesn’t interfere with our function. Three hundred thousand (cases) per day is not out of it. You want to get very, very low.”
The CDC recently outlined new COVID-19 guidelines that recommend a five-day isolation period for those infected with COVID-19. Under the new rules, all Americans who test positive, regardless of vaccination status, should isolate themselves for five days and wear a mask for another five, even among family at home. Boosted Americans who are close contacts of a confirmed case do not need to isolate, provided they’re wearing masks for 10 days after they were exposed.
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The decision, Fauci said, strikes a balance of keeping Americans safe without “drain(ing) society of their very critical workers.”
“It’s not 100% risk-free but then again nothing is 100% risk-free,” Fauci said.
The decision, Fauci said, strikes a balance of keeping Americans safe without “drain(ing) society of their very critical workers.”
“It’s not 100% risk-free but then again nothing is 100% risk-free,” Fauci said.
The updated guidelines aren’t a reflection that asymptomatic people are less contagious, rather how long a person is contagious for, Fauci said.
“The first five days it’s much more likely that you have the capability of transmitting it whether you’re with symptoms or without symptoms,” Fauci said.
That likelihood “diminishes considerably” in the second five days, he said.
From the 12.30.2021 edition of NewsNation’s Morning In America:
Lastly, he mentioned that COVID-19 testing availability will improve greatly in January.
Full Fauci interview on NewsNation’s Morning In America:
From the 12.30.2021 edition of NewsNation’s Morning In America: