(LifeSiteNews) — Dr. Anthony Fauci is once again raising the alarm about a potential resurgence of COVID cases, warning that Americans ought to be ready to once again accept liberty-crushing coronavirus-related mandates, lockdowns, and restrictions despite just emerging from two years of top-down controls.
During a virtual interview March 27 on the BBC’s “Sunday Morning” show, Fauci said Americans “need to be prepared for the possibility” of a reimplementation of public health requirements including mask mandates.
The comments are the latest in a series of similar warnings Fauci has issued during cable news interviews over the past several weeks.
RELATED: Fauci warns that new COVID variant could lead to return of masks, other restrictions
“[W]e need to be prepared for the possibility that we would have another variant that would come along,” Fauci told the BBC on Sunday. “And then, if things change and we do get a variant that does give us an uptick in cases and hospitalization, we should be prepared and flexible enough to pivot toward going back — at least temporarily — to a more rigid type of restrictions, such as requiring masks indoor[s].”
Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned that COVID restrictions may return as the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron spreads across the country. Congressional Correspondent @KILM3NY reports.
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— Newsmax (@newsmax) March 31, 2022
Fauci shied away from calling for more lockdowns, however, noting the word “has a charged element to it.”
“But, I believe that we must keep our eye on the pattern of what we’re seeing with infections,” the White House COVID adviser said.
According to Fauci, the U.S. could see a surge in cases similar to the one underway in Europe, due to “the greater transmissibility” of the new so-called “stealth omicron” variant, or BA.2. He added that “the relaxation of restriction[s], particularly in the context of indoor masking in congregate settings,” along with waning immunity both among the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, are also factors.
Over the past weeks Fauci and other public health officials and pharmaceutical company heads have increasingly called for more booster jabs due to falling efficacy rates of the injections, which were originally marketed as being nearly 100% effective.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved a fourth dose of the Pfizer jab and a fifth dose of the Moderna injection for the immunocompromised and those over the age of 50.
During the BBC interview Sunday, Fauci also spoke about the impact of lockdowns on Americans, suggesting that while “there’s no doubt” that lockdowns “prevented a lot of hospitalizations, and prevented a lot of deaths,” there may be no way “to determine what the right balance is.”
FAUCI: “I don’t think we’re ever going to be able to determine” if covid lockdowns were worth it.
pic.twitter.com/LrmFRkDJLu— Greg Price (@greg_price11) March 29, 2022
Fauci’s comments touting the effectiveness of lockdowns comes in spite of a recent study by the Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics which found that lockdowns had “little to no public health effect,” but “imposed enormous economic and social costs.”