Fauci: Variant spread is still likely

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been warning about it since January: A more contagious and possibly deadlier variant of the coronavirus, first found in Britain, is likely to become predominant in the United States, perhaps leading to a wrenching surge in cases and deaths.

The first part of that warning seems to be coming true: The variant, known as B.1.1.7, is doubling its share of all new U.S. cases about every 10 days.

But the second part is harder to make out. The steep fall in new cases from the January peak halted in mid-february, but the trend since then has been roughly steady or only slightly downward, rather than a feared “fourth wave.”

Experts are not sure why. The accelerating pace of vaccinations and the remaining virus-control measures in much of the country might be balancing out the spread of the more contagious variant. But it is difficult to know how long that equilibrium might last.

The risk of a surge has by no means passed, Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser on COVID-19, warned Sunday.

In an interview Sunday on the CBS program “Face the Nation,” Fauci said that over the past week and a half, the decline in cases had stalled.

“We’re plateauing at quite a high level — 60 to 70,000 new infections per day is quite high,” he said.

Death reports are also falling but remain high, regularly topping 2,000 a day.

Fauci said Sunday that a variant first identified in New York is “not widespread yet, but it seems to be spreading pretty efficiently through the New York City metropolitan area and beyond.”

He said there is evidence that the variant may partly elude protection conferred by vaccines and monoclonal antibody treatments, although the variant does not evade vaccines and treatments as much as one first identified in South Africa.