Coronavirus News: Fauci tells Cuomo January could be very difficult month

Coronavirus Update for New York

Monday, December 7, 2020

Dr. Fauci's full appearance with Gov. Cuomo

Dr. Anthony Fauci joined NY Gov Cuomo for his daily briefing

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Dr. Anthony Fauci warned January could be a very difficult month during an appearance at New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's daily news conference on Monday.

"You'd expect that the effect of the Thanksgiving surge would be probably another week and week and a half from now because it's usually two and a half weeks from the time of the event. The problem is that's going to come right up to the beginning of the Christmas/Hanukkah potential surge. You have a surge upon a surge and then before you can handle that more people are going to travel over Christmas," he said. "They are going to have more of those family and friends gatherings that you accurately said are an issue. So, if those two things happen and we don't mitigate well, we don't listen to the public health measures that we need to follow, then we could start to see things really get bad in the middle of January."

Fauci said having even 10 people at a home gathering may be too much. He said the more people who come from other places, the greater the risk.

He added that we are months away from a vaccine providing an umbrella protection over the country.

"Between now and the end of December you'd likely get a substantial proportion of health care providers and people in your nursing homes. As you get into January, you'll get the second level and then February third. I would think by the time you get to the beginning of April, you'll start getting people who have no high priority just the normal man and woman, New Yorker in the street whose well, has no underlying conditions," he said. "If we do that well, by the time we get into the core of the summer and get to the end of the summer and into the start of the third quarter of 2021, we should be in good shape. That's what I'm hoping for."

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