"I don't think we're going to see lockdowns," Fauci told Jonathan Karl of ABC's This Week on Sunday. "I think we have enough of the percentage of people in the country – not enough to crush the outbreak – but I believe enough to allow us to not get into the situation we were in last winter."
The nation's top infectious disease expert suggested, though, that "things are gonna get worse" and the number of COVID-19 cases will keep growing because so many Americans are still untreated. "We have 100 million people in this country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not getting vaccinated," he said.
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"The unvaccinated, who have a much, much, much greater chance of being infected in the first place, are the ones most vulnerable to getting severe illness that might lead to hospitalization and, in some cases, death."
"So we're looking, not to lockdown, but we're looking to some pain and suffering in the future because we're seeing the cases go up, which is the reason why we keep saying over and over again, the solution to this is to get vaccinated or this would not be happening", he added.
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While this week the country experienced a surge in Americans getting the shot, as coronavirus cases rise prompted largely by the more infectious delta variant, still only about 60 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated.
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Karl also criticized Fauci about new mask-wearing guidelines issued by the CDC that urge even vaccinated people to wear masks again indoors. Fauci has been slammed for flip-flopping on his opinions about whether vaccinated people need masks.
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"The change, as we know now, is even if you are fully vaccinated when you are in an indoor setting in an area of the country that has a high or substantial degree of transmissibility . . . you should wear a mask, even if you, in fact, are vaccinated," Fauci said.
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He added: "That has much more to do with the transmission . . . no vaccine is 100 percent effective, which means in areas of a high volume of infection, vaccinated people will get infected. Thank goodness, for the most part, they will not get seriously ill. They will generally be asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic."
Fauci explained that the unvaccinated are influencing others by "allowing the propagation and the spread of the outbreak," and pushed back against politicians and critics who say whether to get the shot is an individual decision.
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