By following public health guidelines and getting vaccinated as soon as possible, we can avoid a surge in dangerous Covid-19 variants, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “The Beat” about the likelihood of variants becoming dominant strains in the US, Fauci said the surge might be “a possibility, but not necessarily an inevitability.”
The virus can only mutate, if it is able to replicate, Fauci explained.
“When you have a lot of infection in your country, when you’re getting three to 400,000 new infections a day, the virus has an open playing field to replicate so much that it starts to mutate. That’s when you get the dangerous mutations.”
To prevent the variants from replicating and mutating, Fauci charged the public with continuing to follow evidence-based public health measures.
“One of the best ways to prevent that from happening in this country is to double down on public health measures to prevent the virus from going from one person to another: the masking, the distancing, the avoiding congregate settings,” Fauci said.
And, most importantly, Fauci urged the public to get vaccinated.
“As soon as the vaccine becomes available, please go out and get vaccinated, because the combination of vaccination and public health measures will bring the level of virus down so low you won’t give it a chance to mutate. That’s what we need to do.”