Dr. Anthony Fauci is urging Americans to ditch their New Year's Eve plans this year.
Appearing on CNN on Monday morning, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head was asked if it is okay for Americans to celebrate the new year.
"I would stay away from that," Fauci replied.
"I have been telling people consistently that if you're vaccinated and boosted, and you have a family setting, in the home with family and relatives," that is is fine to gather in small numbers, Fauci said. "But when you're talking about a New Year's Eve party, we have 30, 40, 50 people celebrating. You do not know the status of their vaccination, I would recommend strongly stay away from that this year."
Fauci continued, "there will be other years to do that, but not this year." Dr. Anthony Fauci says he recommends that people "stay away" from large New Year’s Eve gatherings where they don’t know the vaccination status of guests.
"There will be other years to do that, but not this year," he says.https://t.co/X6u5qGcrbn pic.twitter.com/5eaEpVfWhd
— New Day (@NewDay) December 27, 2021
The advice comes as mental health issues among Americans continue to soar, which many believe is largely due to isolation from the pandemic.
When asked about the most underreported story of 2020 was during an appearance on Face the Nation, CBS News National Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford said it was the impact that COVID policies are having on the young.
"It's the crushing impact that our COVID policies have had on kids and young children… even teenagers," Crawford said. "They have sacrificed the most… The risk of suicide attempts among girls, now up 51% this year. Black kids nearly twice as likely as White kids to die by suicide. School closures, lockdown, cancellation of sports."
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy warned about this crisis earlier this month.
“I’m so concerned about our children because there is an epidemic, if you will, of mental health challenges that they’ve been facing, and it’s partly because of the pandemic,” Murthy told CNN’s Dana Bash during an appearance on State of the Union. “We’ve seen, certainly, that many children have lost loved ones during this pandemic — 140,000 kids lost a caregiver. We know that their lives have been turned upside down. They haven’t been able to see friends as often as they would, and that’s taken a toll.”
It is not only harming the children.
Fox News reports that an American Psychological Association survey of "Stress in America," nearly 50% of more than 3,000 adult millennial respondents reported that they are struggling with daily tasks as coronavirus continues to spread.
