He urged people who are travelling over the upcoming holidays to get booster shots and always wear masks in crowded public spaces to help slow the spread of the variant.

The easily transmissible variant is “raging through the world,” and travelling will increase the risk of infection even among vaccinated people,Fauci said in an interview with NBC’sMeet the Press.

While he did not foresee the kind of lockdowns that were put in place in the early days of the pandemic,Fauci also noted that it would be difficult to keep the virus under control when there remained “about 50 million people in the country who are eligible to be vaccinated who are not vaccinated.”

President Joe Biden plans to address the nation Tuesday on the status of the country’s fight against the virus,the White House said on Saturday.

The Washington Post and AP