National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci urged Americans last Sunday to get vaccinated for COVID-19 due to the new "mutant" strain during an interview
With America's daily COVID-19 cases hitting an average of 3,000 as per NBC's "Meet The Press" host Chuck Todd, Fauci was invited to discuss the problem with the vaccine's distribution among other things considering he was identified by former Vice President Joseph Biden as his chief medical adviser after his inauguration on Jan. 20.
"When you have a variant that's really very, very different in the sense of it's more contagious, it tells you to do two things: One, double down on the public health measures that we've been talking about all the time," Fauci told Todd in the said interview.
"But also, another important thing, the easiest way to evade this negative effect of these new isolates is," he immediately added, "when the vaccine becomes available, people should get vaccinated."
The Blaze reported that Fauci's statement indicated a call for Americans to prudently follow COVID-19 guidelines in public health and get vaccinated for it. He said the opportunity is a "clarion call" for "people to set aside vaccination hesitancy".
In the said interview, Fauci tackled the situation in Brazil, UK, and South Africa where the new strain of the virus have been found. He actually identified two new strains: one in the UK called B.1.1.7 variant that is "highly contagious" and another one circulating in the aforementioned countries that are "ominous."
"We're taking it really very seriously but we don't want people to panic. But you have to look at it from a certain standpoint," Fauci said sternly. "People need to realize there's more than one mutant strain. There's one from the UK--that's essentially dominating--that's the one seen in the United States. There's another more ominous one that's in South Africa and Brazil. We're looking at all of them very, very carefully."
"We got to be careful because the more cases you get, eventhough on a one to one basis, it is not more virulent meaning it doesn't make you more sick or likely to die by numbers alone," he explained, "What we like to look at more carefully is does that mutation lessen the impact of the vaccine. If it does, we will make modifications."
Todd raised during the interview the issue on the vaccine distribution problem, particularly the incident where Biden announced "the release of all vaccine stockpile" to which Trump agreed "but there was no stockpile." Fauci explained the matter as one of "misunderstanding" that occurred in the actual giving of the vaccine's dosages in the early phase of the distribution, which have been addessed already.
Fauci, during the interview, also provided information on how the vaccine is manufactured and announced that "we are weeks away" from the release of the Johnson and Johnson-Astra Zeneca vaccine.
On the matter of the Defense Production Act that Biden has instructed to take effect on the vaccine's manufacturing process, Fauci clarified that this will be in place to ensure targets are met in so far as the vaccine's administration is concerned.
"The issue of getting a hundred million doses in the first hundred days is absolutely a doable thing," he said, indicating that what Biden is going to do "is where it need be to invoke the DPA to get the kinds of things we need--whatever they may be--be they test, be they vaccines, or what-have-you. In other words, to not be hesitant to use whatever mechanisms that we can to get on track, to get the flow he predict."
"The feasibility of his goal is absolutely clear. There's no doubt about that, it can be done," Fauci clarified.
The historical yet unconstitutional second impeachment of President Donald Trump, the existing divide among Republicans, and the results of the social surveys on Trump and the upcoming inauguration were also tackled by Todd in that Jan. 17 episode of "Meet The Press."
