Anthony Fauci: ‘You Have a Societal Responsibility’ to Avoid Getting Infected With COVID-19
Dr. Anthony Fauci warned Americans — particularly those in younger generations — that they had a “societal responsibility” to avoid getting infected with COVID-19.
“A risk for you is not just isolated to you. Because if you get infected, you are part — innocently or inadvertently — of propagating the dynamic process of a pandemic,” Fauci said during a Friday briefing with the White House coronavirus task force. “You have an individual responsibility to yourself, but you have a societal responsibility. Because if we want to end this outbreak — really end it — and hopefully when a vaccine comes and puts the nail in the coffin, we’ve got to realize we are part of the process.”
Fauci also said that the “majority” of people getting infected now were “young people,” such as the ones seen congregating in large crowds.
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“But the thing that you really need to realize that when you do that, you are part of a process. So if you get infected, you will infect someone else who clearly will infect someone else,” he said. “And ultimately, you will infect someone who is vulnerable.”
As of Friday, there have been over 2.4 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in America and over 124,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. There were 4,890 confirmed cases and 79 deaths in California on Thursday.
Lawrence Yee contributed to this report.
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