Covid-19 nowhere near 'under control' in US, says Anthony Fauci

Expressing concerns over the rising COVID-19 cases, White House Chief medical Adviser Anthony Fauci on Thursday said deadly pandemic is nowhere near "under control" in the US.

Fauci reiterated that the only way out of this pandemic is vaccination. "Right now, we're still in pandemic mode, because we have 1,60,000 new infections a day. That's not even modestly good control," Fauci was quoted as saying by The Hill.

"In a country of our size, you can't be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day. You've got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable," he said during his interview with AXIOS.

The daily average number of new coronavirus cases in the US as of September 9, fell slightly below 1,48,000, which is a 5 per cent decrease over a 14-day period.

Nationwide hospitalisations have also increased by 1 per cent over the same period, bringing the average total to more than 100,000 per day, The Hill reported.

Earlier this month, the US has planned to provide boosters shots of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 after the Delta variant wreaked havoc in the country.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had also again cautioned Americans, asking them to mask up when they enter a building, even if they are vaccinated.

The United States recently surpassed 40 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, with more than 4 million of these cases reported in the past few weeks. COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths have generally increased throughout most of the country since the beginning of summer, fueled by the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. Low vaccination coverage in many communities is driving these increases, as per the reports of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A total of 40,523,954 COVID-19 cases have been reported as of September 8, 2021.

The country reported 1,36,558 cases in the last seven days. The current 7-day moving average is 99.3 per cent higher than the value observed approximately one year ago (68,527 new cases on July 20, 2020).

The current 7-day moving average is 46.2 per cent lower than the peak observed on January 10, 2021 (254,016) and is 1,076.0 per cent higher than the lowest value observed on June 18, 2021 (11,613).