Fauci: Christmas could be worse than Thanksgiving for COVID-19 spread

Top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci said Monday that Christmas could be worse than Thanksgiving for COVID-19 spread in the U.S.

“My concerns… are the same thing of the concerns that I had about Thanksgiving, only this may be even more compounded because it’s a longer holiday,” he said on CNN’s “New Day.”

Fauci noted that Thanksgiving celebrations tend to be shorter as people return to work the following week, but Christmas leads into New Year’s.

“I think it can be even more of a challenge than what we saw with Thanksgiving,” Fauci said. “So I hope that people realize that and understand that as difficult as this is, nobody wants to modify, if not, essentially shut down, their holiday season.”

“But we’re at a very critical time in this country right now,” he added. “We’ve got to not walk away from the facts and the data. This is tough going for all of us.”