Fauci Warns Anti-Vaxxers Could Cause New COVID-19 Variant That Eludes Vaccine Protection

Though such a warning certainly isn’t required to already realize this, Dr. Anthony Fauci again warned over the weekend that unvaccinated Americans are putting everyone else at risk of even more dire pandemic conditions in the future.

As of Aug. 8, per the CDC, 50.1 percent of the total U.S. population has now been fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Previously, the U.S. fell short of President Joe Biden’s initial goal of getting 70 percent of American adults at least partially vaccinated by the Fourth of July.

Asked byUSA Today over the weekend to share his predictions for what would happen if the U.S. were to remain roughly half-vaccinated, Fauci was quick to offer a summary of why vaccines are so integral to society at large before getting specific about the negative impact of still-unvaccinated people.

“When you get the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated—and we don’t know what that threshold is—the virus will disappear, and then we won’t need to worry about it, at least in this country,” Fauci, Biden’s chief medical advisor, said. “If you don’t do that, you will get a smoldering level of infection that will just go right into the fall, get confused with influenza in the winter, and then come back again in the spring.”

Fauci then reiterated his previous condemnation of the false attitude that someone who is “young and healthy” is magically immune from a global pandemic, noting the inherent selfishness of remaining unvaccinated despite the risk it poses to others, as well as oneself.

Though “not guaranteed,” Fauci added that unvaccinated people causing the proliferation of variants could—if the situation remains similar to what it is now—spur the spread of another variant able that’s able to fully break through vaccines.

“With delta, we have a virus that spreads much more rapidly than the original alpha variant,” Fauci said. “What happens if over months and months and months you allow the virus to replicate, it is conceivable, not guaranteed, but conceivable, that we could get a variant that eludes the protection of the vaccine.”

Globally, Fauci added, we are linked by how well we individually respond to the continued pressures of the pandemic era. And while we do indeed live in a “sea of lies,” per Fauci, optimism still remains surrounding the chances of boosting vaccination rates to the levels required to truly put this all behind us.

Still not vaxxed up? Cut the bullshit and schedule your shot.