As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci has been at the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic. The 79 year old stood alongside President Donald Trump during his regular press briefings early in the pandemic and has been a key figure in urging Americans to practice necessary safety precautions to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

On November 29, Dr. Fauci appeared on NBC's Meet the Press to give an update on rising cases and the development of COVID-19 vaccines.

"Surge Upon Surge" of COVID-19 Cases

Dr. Fauci offered a bleak prediction of another surge of COVID-19 cases following Thanksgiving weekend in the US. More than 4.1 million Americans tested positive for the virus in November, and more than 25,000 of those individuals have died.

"We're going to have to do the kinds of restrictions of things we would have liked to have done, particularly in this holiday season, because we're entering into what's really a precarious situation," he told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd.

While holiday travel wasn't recommended, those who did travel over the Thanksgiving weekend are encouraged to continue practicing social distancing and wearing masks in public settings.

"Light at the End of the Tunnel"

Despite his grim warning, Dr. Fauci did offer a reason for optimism: three in-development vaccines have shown positive results in clinical trials. Moderna, one of the three companies working on a vaccine, experienced a 94.1 percent efficacy rate in trials and is now seeking emergency use authorization and conditional approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency, respectively.

Dr. Fauci noted that healthcare workers and those in "higher priority groups" will likely be the first to receive vaccines and could receive them as early as mid-December. Vaccines will be shipped to individual states, which then have the final say in how to distribute them, albeit with guidance from the CDC.

"Months" before Children Receive COVID-19 Vaccine

Children may be the last segment of the population to receive the vaccine, Dr. Fauci noted. It may also take a while before people who are pregnant are approved. Both of these groups are particularly vulnerable, so the vaccine must work effectively—and without side effects—before they can begin receiving the vaccine.

A bridging study will be carried out before this happens to ensure similar results to those of the clinical trials on adults. More than 500,000 children in the US had a positive COVID-19 diagnosis as of September.