Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Monday that the Covid-19 variant
ravaging the United Kingdom — which the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has predicted will become dominant in the
United States within roughly two months — is likely more deadly
than the current common strain of the coronavirus.
The remarks from Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease
expert and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, represent
a new assessment from senior U.S. health officials — who had
acknowledged in recent weeks that the U.K. strain was more
contagious but said there was no evidence suggesting it was more
dangerous.
In a report
released last Friday, however, the U.K. government’s science
advisory group concluded that “there is a realistic possibility
that infection with” the country’s dominant Covid-19 variant
“is associated with an increased risk of death compared to
infection with” other strains of the coronavirus.
Fauci called those findings “concerning” in an interview
Monday on NBC’s
“Today” show. “The data has not come out officially, but
taking a look at the preliminary data that the U.K. scientists have
analyzed, I’m pretty convinced that there is a degree of increase
in seriousness of the actual infection, which we really have to
keep an eye on,” he said.
The CDC
first warned last month that travelers could bring the newly
identified U.K. coronavirus variant into the U.S., and the agency
reported earlier this month that the variant could become the
dominant strain of the disease in the U.S. as early as March.
Moderna, the drug maker whose Covid vaccine was approved by the
Food and Drug Administration last month,
announced Monday that it will develop a booster shot to improve
vaccine efficacy against emerging coronavirus strains.
