Dr Fauci said his Covid-19 recovery is an “example" for the nation of the protection offered by vaccines and boosters.
The 81-year-old said began experiencing virus symptoms on June 14 and tested positive a day later. He was prescribed the anti-viral drug Paxlovid, which has proven to be highly effective at preventing serious illness and death from coronavirus, on June 15.
“I’m still feeling really quite fine," Fauci said as the administration emphasised the protection offered by vaccines to people of all ages after the US became the first country in the world to extend vaccine eligibility to children as young as six months.
“I think I’m an example, given my age, of what we’re all talking about today," Fauci said. “I’m vaccinated. I’m doubly boosted. And I believe if that were not the case, I very likely would not be talking to you looking as well as I look, I think, right now. So all is well with Fauci."
According to the data by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 222.1 million have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 in the US so far which is 66.9% of the country's total population. As many as 105,093,591 (47.3%) people have taken the first booster dose while 17.4 million have been administered with the second booster dose, the data added.
Overall, 86,512,787 people have been infected by a coronavirus in the US since 2020. OF the total cases, 1,010,089 people have succumbed to respiratory infection. At present, the hospitalisation stands at 25,212.
Separately, the latest report published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal shows that Covid vaccines that were developed in record time saved an estimated 20 million lives in the first year of the rollout, more than half of them in wealthier countries.
Vaccines from companies including Pfizer Inc., Moderna Inc., and AstraZeneca Plc have slashed hospitalisations and deaths, with more than 12 billion doses administered across the planet.
The global vaccination effort is “a remarkable achievement, and it’s fundamentally changed how the pandemic has progressed," Oliver Watson, an Imperial College London researcher who co-authored the study, said in an interview.
