Fauci: Safely attending events with masks ‘depends on the level of virus in the community’

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, on Wednesday emphasized that attending public events with masks will depend on “the level of virus in the community” as the country continues to vaccinate millions of Americans daily.

In an interview with host Gayle King on “CBS This Morning,” Fauci advised that people use caution after King pointed to a Texas Rangers baseball game where crowd members were seated closely and only some were wearing masks.

“Well, you know, it depends on the level of the virus in the community, Gayle,” Fauci said. “Every day that goes by, we get closer and closer to where we want to be. And we don’t want people now all of the sudden to declare victory prematurely and then feed into what is a potential surge.”

Is it okay for us to go to events wearing a mask? — @GayleKing

“It depends on the level of virus in the community… we don’t want people now all of a sudden to declare victory prematurely and then feed into what is a potential surge.” — Dr. Fauci pic.twitter.com/IA4R3fNnB7

— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) April 7, 2021

Fauci said that with several states seeing recent increases in coronavirus cases, Americans should not stray away from preventative methods such as mask-wearing and socially distancing that have been proven to work.

“We’ve got to hang in there and not completely pull back on several of the mitigation methods of public health because if we do that we’re tempting another surge,” he said.

He also expressed his hope that with more vaccinations occurring nationwide that a surge could be avoided.

“Every day we get three to 4 million people vaccinated,” he told King. “That is critical. If we do that for another few weeks or a month or more we’re going to be ahead of the game and that surge won’t occur.”