MSNBC
- The vaccine-hesistant need to get jabbed for the US to reach herd immunity against COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
- "We can get herd immunity really easily if we get everybody vaccinated," Fauci said on MSNBC.
- "The only way you can get through herd immunity without them" is if "they all wind up getting infected," he said.
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In order for the US to reach herd immunity against COVID-19, those who are unvaccinated will need to get inoculated, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert.
"We can get herd immunity really easily if we get everybody vaccinated," Fauci said during an interview on MSNBC Tuesday.
When asked by MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan whether the nation can reach herd immunity without the help of those who are resistant to getting the vaccine, Fauci replied, "I don't think so."
"The only way you can get through herd immunity without them is if the unfortunate situation, if they all wind up getting infected," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
-MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 24, 2021
Fauci added, "And then you'll have a combination of infected individuals who have some degree of protection and together with vaccinated individuals."
"But that's going to lead to a whole lot of suffering, a whole lot of hospitalization and a whole lot of death," he noted.
According to the latest data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 51.5% of the total US population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while 60.8% of the total population has received at least one vaccine dose.
Meanwhile, the highly tranmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus that is now the dominant strain in the country changed the probability for achieving herd immunity, the developer of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has said.
Sir Andrew Pollard, a professor of pediatric infection and immunity at the University of Oxford, said earlier this month that reaching herd immunity is "not a possibility" with the Delta variant in play.
"We know very clearly with coronavirus that this current variant, the Delta variant, will still infect people who have been vaccinated, and that does mean that anyone who's still unvaccinated, at some point, will meet the virus," Pollard said.