Anthony Fauci, the United States’ top virologist, highlighted his fear of a possible government shutdown while the COVID-19 pandemic tightens its grip on the country as the US Congress could possibly fail to reach a consensus on government funding.

Fauci, who is also US President Joe Biden‘s top advisor on the coronavirus pandemic, said that this would be the “worst time” for a government shutdown, according to US media reports.

“I think it is so obvious to anybody who is looking at the situation”, Fauci said in a statement to Washington Post. He added, “The worst time in the world we want to shut down the government is in the middle of a pandemic where we have 140,000 people a day getting infected and 2,000 people a day dying. That’s the time when you want the government working full blast to address this.”

The White House budget office is set to ask federal agencies to prepare for a United States government shutdown, the first of its kind since the COVID-19 pandemic began last year in March. The American federal government faces a shutdown if funding stops on September 30, which is the end of the fiscal year.

Earlier this week, the COVID-19 emergency officially became the worst pandemic to ever hit the United States crossing the tally recorded during the influenza health crisis.

The daily average COVID-19 related deaths in the United States touched their highest point since March 2021 and crossed the 2000 mark this week, according to US media reports citing a COVID tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

The United States Food and Drug Administration authorised the use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine as a booster shot for “certain populations”, which includes people who are at a high risk of getting severe COVID-19 symptoms and those above the age of 65, the authority said in a press release on Wednesday.