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Trump CDC Director Robert Redfield Warns More Dangerous Variant Than Delta Coming in Fall
As hospitals are already being pushed to their limits, Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), warned an even more infectious variant could hit the United States in just a few months.
The Delta variant’s contagious nature is fueling spikes in cases across the United States and the more the virus is allowed to spread, the more likely it is to evolve. COVID-19 was already one of the most infectious diseases in humans at its outset, and Redfield warned it got a “jump-start” on being able to evolve at a rapid pace, making the need for vaccinations even more critical.
“Sadly I’m going to predict that within two, three, four months we’re going to have another variant and that variant is going to be more infectious,” Redfield told Fox News on Monday. “The one thing that we all can do to really confront the evolution of this next variant, slow it down, is to get our population vaccinated.”
Aside from the immediate economic and human toll the pandemic is taking on the world, SARS-CoV-2 continuing to spread raises concerns about the future of the outbreak. Redfield pointed out that the virus is replicating at a high capacity in humans, making the risk of variant evolution “extremely high.”
The emergence of a more infectious variant means more people could get infected, raising the possibility of additional hospitalizations. Health systems across the country, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, are feeling the stress of dealing with an influx of COVID-19 patients. Some are unable to sufficiently staff their hospitals, preventing maximum treatment of patients, others have had to turn people away because of a lack of beds and some are putting a hold on certain surgeries.
Without the ability to properly care for an increased number of COVID-19 patients, the death toll could rise, and eventually, a variant could pose a threat to those who are vaccinated.
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