A leading US infectious diseases expert has issued a dire warning about the worldwide coronavirus pandemic while praising Australia’s response.
Dr Anthony Fauci said no country is safe from further outbreaks until the vast majority of the world’s population is vaccinated against the virus and its spread is controlled globally.
The chief health adviser to US President Joe Biden warned about future threats of the virus and the need for the world to work together while participating in a University of New South Wales lecture via videolink on Wednesday.
‘When you ultimately get it controlled, if you want to maintain the control, you want to have control throughout the entire world,’ Dr Fauci explained.
America’s top infectious diseases expert has praised ‘capability and uniformity’ of Australians during the pandemic. Pictured are Melburnians enjoying their post-lockdown freedom
‘As long as there’s the dynamic of virus replication somewhere, there will always be the threat of the emergence of variants which could then come back and even though most of the rest of the world is vaccinated, it can threaten the world that has felt that they’ve controlled the virus when they’re still quite vulnerable.
‘If you want to maintain control you want to have control throughout the entire world.’
The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the US National Institute of Health praised Australia on its response to the pandemic with effective lockdowns, along with the ‘capability and uniformity of citizens’.
‘Australia I believe was one of the better countries in the entire world in how you responded and unfortunately we have not done nearly as well as we should have done, Dr Fauci said.
‘When you shut down, you really shut down, very effectively.
‘Then when you had a situation where you opened up again, you responded quickly and efficiently and I’m sure not everybody in Australia was excited about having to shut things down but you did it in a way which was really quite uniform, but importantly, effective.’
The expert praised Australia’s response but warned the threat of the virus isn’t over. Pictured are Sydneysiders celebrating the removal of lockout laws in Kings Cross
He said vaccination will be the answer but warned the threat of public hesitancy could be a ‘stumbling block’ for mass vaccination.
While recently elected President Biden has made the vaccine rollout a ‘very top priority’ in the US, Australia’s rollout has been riddled with delays and bungles since it began in February.
‘Variants are a problem, no doubt, but we are a fortunate… we now have several vaccines that are highly efficacious,’ Dr Fauci said.
‘The issue is we’ve got to get the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated.’
Dr Fauci also shared an insight into the situation in the US, which has recorded more than 32million cases and 577,226 deaths.
He admitted a lack of unity and profound divisiveness played a part of the US faring worse than any other country.
Dr Anthony Fauci (pictured) says no country, including Australia is safe from further outbreaks until the vast majority of the world’s population is vaccinated against coronavirus
Dr Fauci says vaccination will be the answer. Pictured is a Sydney woman being vaccinated
‘If you look at the United States … we had an inconsistent response which allowed us, unfortunately for us, to really do worse than essentially any other country, which is really extremely unfortunate,’ Dr Fauci said.
‘It is unfortunate we are living right now in our country in a time of profound divisiveness. I think anyone who pays any attention to what’s going on in the United States sees that.’
‘In some respects, that happens in different countries, but when it spills over in the middle of the worst, most historic pandemic of a respiratory disease that we’ve had in over 100 years, if there’s anything you want, is you want people to be pulling together in uniform.’
‘We still have situations where governors in their independence are essentially defying some of the recommendations and the guidelines of public health,’ Dr Fauci said.
Dr Fauci says Australia was one of the best countries in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Pictured are women on a night out in Sydney’s Darlinghurst in March
