"Mid-January is probably going to be a bad time for small-spread families," Fauci told a media briefing hosted by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. "Living-room spread, we call it."
The spike in infections is expected after many Americans ignored health experts’ warnings not to travel for the November 26 Thanksgiving holiday or gather with those they do not immediately live with.

Fauci, who’s director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the COVID-19 impact from the Thanksgiving holiday was expected to be fully felt between the next week and 10 days, before more cases emerge from this month’s Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year holidays.

US airports screened 1.8 million passengers on the Thanksgiving weekend, the highest since March, data showed, as more people seem receptive of flying amid reports of imminent vaccine availability for the virus. Two vaccines, by Pfizer Inc and Moderna Inc, are awaiting emergency approval from the Food and Drug Administration, and at least one could be available in less than two weeks.

Despite the progress in vaccines, health experts warn that the US hospital system could still be overwhelmed in the coming months by COVID-19 cases, as evidenced in the March-April period.

Some 14.8 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since January and more than 282,000 have died of related complications, data tracked by the Johns Hopkins University showed. In recent weeks, daily hospitalization of those infected have reached more than 100,000, threatening to overrun the health system.