(CNSNews.com) - Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday said he's concerned about an "uptick" in COVID cases resulting from a "pull back on the mitigation methods," such as masking and social distancing.
He's urging Americans to continue following CDC guidelines, but he also admitted that COVID "is not going to be eradicated, and it's not going to be eliminated."
Fauci said Americans are "going to have to live with some degree of virus in the community."
"And what's going to happen is that we're going to see that each individual is going to have to make their calculation of the amount of risk that they want to take in going to indoor dinners and in going to functions, even within the realm of a green zone map of the country where you see everything looks green but it's starting to tick up.
"So you're going to make a question and an answer for yourself, for me as an individual, for you as an individual. What is my age? What is my status? Do I have people at home who are vulnerable that if I bring the virus home there may be a problem?"
Fauci continues to urge vaccination for the unvaccinated as well as a second booster shot for adults age 50 and older and for the immuno-compromised.
Fauci also urged Congress to appropriate billions more dollars for another potential COVID surge so "we're prepared with...all of the tools that we need to address it."
Congress adjourned for its spring break on Friday without passing the estimated $10-billion in additional COVID relief, despite President Biden's warning that "the consequences of inaction are severe."
Fauci told ABC's "This Week" that if the funding isn't forthcoming, "we're not going to be ready for" the next wave of COVID.
Host Jon Karl noted that both he and Fauci attended the recent Gridiron Dinner in Washington, and as many as 67 of the hundreds of attendees later tested positive for COVID. "What is the lesson here?" Karl asked. "Should we not be holding events like this or to the point we just talked about, is it time to accept that we can have an event like this but there's going to be a risk, some people will test positive, if everybody is vaccinated, you know, it won't necessarily be that serious?"
"I think it gets back to what we were discussing just a moment ago, Jon," Fauci said:
"It's going to be a person's decision about the individual risk they're going to take. I think the people who run functions, who run big dinners, who run functions like the White House Correspondents' ball, or thinking back, the Gridiron Dinner, are going to have to make a determination looking at the CDC guidelines and seeing where the trends are.
"I mean, there are some places you go, not only is it required that you show proof of vaccination, but you have to have a negative test the day you go to a particular place.
"And I know a lot of social functions throughout Washington and in New York are doing the same thing, and it's up to the individual to determine what their level of risk. We don't want to pooh-pooh getting infected. I think people sometimes say, well, it's okay to get infected.
"No, it's not, because there are things like long COVID and there are sometimes people even though they don't require hospitalization, Jon, they get significantly ill. They may be at home, they may require a doctor consultation, but they don't get hospitalized. That's not something to pooh-pooh. Again, each individual will have to take their own determination of risk."
Gridiron Dinner attendees were required to show proof of vaccination.
As of April 6, 2022, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the current 7-day moving average of daily new cases was 26,596, an increase of 4.9 percent compared with the previous 7-day moving average of 25,363.
But hospitalizations are down and so are deaths: The current 7-day moving average of new deaths (497) decreased 22.1 percent compared with the previous 7-day moving average of 638.