#Dr. Fauci says aiming for herd immunity would lead to ‘enormous’ death toll

“#Dr. Fauci says aiming for herd immunity would lead to ‘enormous’ death toll”

Dr. Anthony Fauci warned about a staggering death toll from the coronavirus, particularly among vulnerable people, if the US allows the infections to sweep across the country in a bid to achieve possible herd immunity.

“If everyone contracted it, even with the relatively high percentage of people without symptoms … a lot of people are going to die,” the nation’s top infectious diseases expert said during a live Instagram session Thursday with actor Matthew McConaughey, CNN reported.

“You look at the United States of America with our epidemic of obesity as it were. With the number of people with hypertension. With the number of people with diabetes. If everyone got infected, the death toll would be enormous and totally unacceptable,” said Fauci, 79, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Herd immunity is reached when a large part of the population — about 70 percent to 90 percent — becomes immune to a virus either through infection and recovery, or through inoculation.

At that point, it is tougher for a virus to spread, so even people who haven’t been infected or vaccinated have some protection.

It remains unclear whether coronavirus survivors have immunity, or for how long, though some have suggested that allowing the illness to run rampant might help reach herd immunity more quickly, CNN reported.

Using such a tactic also would prove disastrous for hospitals, which would be overrun with patients.

More than 167,000 people have died of COVID-19 and over 5.2 million have been infected across the US, according to Johns Hopkins University.

In the next three weeks, the number of deaths nationwide will surge to a projected total of nearly 189,000, according to an ensemble forecast published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday.

On the high end of the projection, 201,431 people will have died by Sept. 5.

A previous ensemble forecast, published July 23, projected about 164,477 coronavirus deaths by Saturday, according to CNN.

“You can’t run away from the numbers,” Fauci said in the 40-minute live Instagram session with the Oscar-winning actor. “You can’t run away from the numbers of people who’ve died, the number of people getting hospitalized, the surges we’re seeing.”

Fauci, a member of the White House pandemic task force, addressed a variety of topics in the wide-ranging interview, including how concerned people should be about becoming infected from touching a door knob.