Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House health advisor, recently told CNN that the United States has two tools to help defeat the COVID-19 variants.
Fauci told CNN that the United States can follow public health measures to stop the virus:
- “The two ways to combat this is one: continue to do the types of public health interventions that we talk about all the time.” This includes washing hands, distancing yourself socially, avoiding large crowds and wearing masks.
Fauci told CNN that the other important way to prevent variants is to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine.
- “But also, as the weeks and months pass, as you vaccinate more and more people, you have a vaccine that works against this variant,” said Fauci in reference to the South African variant. “So if we implement the vaccine … and vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible, while maintaining public health measures, we should be in a good position.”
Concerns about variants
Researchers continue to worry about the South African variant of the new coronavirus. As reported by Reuters, the South African variant may reduce protection for the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine by two-thirds, a sign that the vaccine may not fully protect people from the variant, according to Reuters.
Pfizer and Moderna began to create a third injection of their vaccine, which would update the vaccine to help protect against variants, as I wrote for Deseret News.