Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, said Sunday that he does not expect another lockdown in the United States to ensue, despite the new delta variant leading to a rise in COVID-19 cases around the country.
"I don't think we're going to see lockdowns. I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country, not enough to crush the outbreak, but I believe enough to not allow us to get into the situation we were in last winter," Fauci told Jon Karl on ABC’s "This Week."
However, Fauci did predict that “things are going to get worse,” before attributing the recent coronavirus outbreak to unvaccinated Americans.
"If you look at the acceleration of the number of cases, the seven-day average has gone up substantially," Fauci said. "You know, what we really need to do, Jon, we say it over and over again, and it's the truth, we have 100 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not getting vaccinated. We are seeing an outbreak of the unvaccinated."
"We're looking, not, I believe, to lockdown, but we're looking to some pain and suffering in the future because we're seeing the cases go up, which is the reason why we keep saying over and over again, the solution to this is get vaccinated and this would not be happening," he continued.
This comes following the White House saying that lockdowns could be on the table if scientists were to recommend such a move.
COVID-19 infections have risen in the U.S. in recent weeks due to the highly infectious delta variant despite more than 164 million Americans, or 50 percent of the U.S. population, being vaccinated against the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.