Declining willingness to vaccinate: Fauci sees the USA in unnecessary Corona

The immunologist and chief advisor to the American government for the fight against viruses Anthony Fauci has warned against backward steps in the fight against corona in his country.

The United States is currently in an "unnecessary emergency," he told CNN television with a view to the increasing number of new infections.

It is problematic that half of the population is not yet fully vaccinated.

The tense corona situation is due to the behavior of unvaccinated citizens.

He finds that "very frustrating," said Fauci.

He appealed to citizens to get vaccinated and called for greater efforts to convince those who doubted to get vaccinated.

49 percent fully vaccinated

With a view to modeling that predicts a new high in corona deaths, Fauci said that a "worst case" scenario does not necessarily have to occur, but the situation is certainly not good.

"We are on the wrong course."

In the spring, the United States was making rapid progress with its vaccination campaign.

But in the meantime a certain amount of vaccination fatigue has set in.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 49.1 percent of the total population was fully immunized by Sunday - in Germany, according to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), 49.1 percent of all citizens were also fully vaccinated by Friday.

The number of new infections in the United States from the Delta variant has increased in recent weeks.

The situation is particularly tense in states with low vaccination rates.

Nationwide, the number of hospital admissions is at a relatively low level.

But where relatively few people are vaccinated, it increases again much faster.

The American President Joe Biden recently warned of a "pandemic among unvaccinated people". Getting vaccinated is the "most patriotic" thing citizens can do now. He urged people on the national holiday, July 4th, to get immunized against the corona virus. The government also sees misinformation on social media such as Facebook as one reason for the lack of willingness to vaccinate. "They're killing people," said Biden. Facebook immediately rejected the allegation.

Like Fauci, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson spoke to CNN about the latest developments in the corona situation. He said resistance to vaccination has recently increased in certain sections of the population. This resistance is based on misinformation. Arkansas' vaccination rate is one of the lowest in the United States.