Fauci: Inequality in public health is an important reason for the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

GENEVA, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at the 2022 World Economic Forum video conference held on the 17th that the United States should have been the most prepared country for the new crown pandemic, but it has become one of the few countries most affected by the epidemic. Inequality in public health in the United States is an important reason for this phenomenon.

On July 26, 2021, pedestrians walk past a COVID-19 testing billboard at a pharmacy in New York, USA. (Photo by Xinhua news agency reporter Wang Ying)

Fauci said in a video conference on the future development trend of the new crown epidemic at the forum that today, the cumulative number of confirmed cases of new crown in the United States has exceeded 65 million, and the cumulative number of deaths is nearly 900,000, "which is really unfortunate and what we hoped could have been avoided."

In the U.S., he said, people have different access to health care, "we have a large number of individuals who don't have access to treatment, and minorities have higher hospitalization rates and mortality rates than the general population." At the same time, he said that many people resist public health measures, and their reluctance to wear masks and vaccinate is "very disturbing".

Fauci pointed out that in the process of fighting the new crown virus, if there is no unity and cooperation, the virus will prevail, and the same is true for rich countries like the United States, if the whole society works together, "we will deal with it a lot better." ”

He stressed that the response to the new crown mutant strain should not be like "hitting the gopher", that is, every time a new mutant strain appears, it will be inoculated with a reinforcing needle, which will leave humans in a passive state. He noted the need for a more coordinated global response mechanism.

"A global pandemic requires a global response, and we must always keep in mind the issue of fairness and not allow the virus to spread freely somewhere in the world... We should respond to the challenge as a global community, and that's an important lesson for us. He concluded. (Participating reporters: Guo Shuang, Liu Qu)