Fauci warns that lifting COVID restrictions too early can cause another wave of infections.

Although vaccinations in the United States are increasing, the risk of a new wave of COVID-19 infections still exists, warned Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, on Sunday. Experts have long warned that a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, first detected in Britain, is spreading rapidly in the United States and could lead to a new wave of infections. And this is likely to happen more quickly if more places decide to reverse public health measures that have been proven to slow the spread of the virus.

The United States had been seeing steady declines in the number of cases and deaths, but now that has stalled. And this is something of particular concern to Fauci. The decline is “beginning to stagnate”, Fauci said on CBS ‘ Face the Nation. And this is happening “at a very high level, stabilizing at a level of sixty to seventy thousand new cases per day is not an acceptable level”. Looking at Europe, which is “generally a few weeks ahead of us in these patterns,” there were also sharp declines and then a level that was followed by a 9 percent increase in cases over the past week.

As some states are voiding their mandates and masking limits for indoor activities, Fauci warned that getting rid of the measures too early could help make the outbreak a reality. “We want to go back carefully and slowly about the withdrawal of mitigation methods. But don’t turn the switch on and off because it would really be risky to have another wave, ”said Fauci. Talking at NBC’s Meet the press Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm said the United States was “in the eye of the hurricane”.

Speaking on CNN, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves defended the decision not to have a mask mandate in the state. “When you look at the numbers in Mississippi, it doesn’t justify government intervention,” he said. “Our number one tool against the virus is to shoot guns.”