Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, has warned of “some pain and suffering in the future” as coronavirus cases continue to rise.
Fauci, told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that he doesn’t foresee more lockdowns in the U.S., but warned that the situation surrounding the coronavirus pandemic will continue to get worse because so many Americans are still unvaccinated. While this week the nation saw a surge in Americans getting the shot, as coronavirus cases rise driven largely by the more infectious delta variant, still only about 60% of Americans are fully vaccinated.
Fauci argued that the unvaccinated are affecting others because they’re “allowing the propagation and the spread of the outbreak,” and pushed back against critics who say whether to get the shot is an individual decision. Fauci said that those who choose not to get vaccinated are actually impacting the rights of Americans particularly prone to infection because they’re “encroaching on their individual rights” by “making them vulnerable.”