Fauci: “We have to assume now” that the British virus strain can “cause more damage”

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Anthony FauciAnthony Fauci AstraZeneca vaccine distribution begins in Brazil Biden and British Prime Minister discuss NATO, multilateralism during Sunday’s call show preview: All eyes on the Biden administration to address coronavirus MORE, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said recent data from the British government suggested a new, more virulent strain of coronavirus was also more deadly, but said US officials needed to examine the number themselves.

Asked by CBS’s Margaret Brennan about her earlier claims that the strain, while more infectious, was not apparently more deadly, Fauci said: So, that’s where I got that information. ”

“When British investigators looked more closely at the mortality rate of a certain age group and found that it was one per thousand … and then rose to 1.3 per thousand in a certain group,” Fauci added. “This is a significant increase. So the latest data is in line with what the British are saying. We want to analyze the data ourselves, but we have every reason to believe it. I am a very competent group. ”

Fauci went on to say that Americans “must now assume that what is predominantly circulating in the UK has a certain increase in what we call virulence, namely the power of the virus to cause more damage, including death.”

Fauci addressed another strain that is thought to come from South Africa separately, saying “in some cases [the strain] diminishes the effectiveness of the vaccine, ”but the vaccine was still generally effective.

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