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Dr. Anthony Fauci said that it's reasonable for Americans vaccinated and boosted against COVID-19 can be with family over the holidays but attending large gatherings is not safe, even for those who received a booster dose.
Fauci’s statement comes as the country is facing a winter surge of new COVID-19 infections amid the spread of the Omicron variant.
“There are many of these parties that have 30, 40, 50 people in which you do not know the vaccination status of individuals,” he said. “Those are the kind of functions in the context of Omicron that you do not want to go to.”
Fauci said that the Omicron variant appears to be less severe than the Delta strain, but could potentially be more transmissible, prompting his warning about holiday gatherings.
“This is good news,” he added. “However, we must wait to see what happens in our own population which has its own demographic considerations.’’
In her latest update, Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that Omicron represents nearly 75 percent of all newly reported COVID-19 cases, and as high as 90 percent in some areas along the East Coast.
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