Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s medical adviser, and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, however disagrees with this idea of considering COVID a less risky or less dangerous respiratory illness than the flu.
“I’m sorry — I just disagree,” he says.
“The severity of one compared to the other is really quite stark. And the potential to kill of one versus the other is really quite stark.”
Many like Fauci say that COVID-19 is still killing hundreds of people daily. Over 125,000 additional COVID deaths could occur over the next 12 months if deaths continue at that pace, Fauci highlights.
As compared to flu, which kills about 50,000 people during a bad season, COVID-19 is said to have already killed more than 1 million Americans and was the third leading cause of death in 2021.