Colorado may reach the point of lockdown if hospital capacity is breached, but it’s not inevitable, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s foremost infectious-disease expert, said Tuesday at a news conference with Gov. Jared Polis.

Nonetheless, Fauci predicted a “surge upon a surge” nationally in the wake of Thanksgiving travel.

“One of the issues with locking down is that it essentially pushes on, and I would think amplifies … this idea about COVID fatigue, that if you lock down, you might actually discourage people enough that they just throw their hands up and say, ‘You know, enough of this. I don’t want any part of this,’ ” Fauci said when asked if the state’s virus response is sufficient, given the magnitude of spread and lack of localized or a statewide stay-at-home order.

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“It may come to lockdown. I think if you start to see over-running of your hospitals and your health-care systems, I can assure you, there will be serious consideration for lockdown. But what I’ve been saying now for weeks and weeks, if not months, is that you don’t have to resort to lockdown if you uniformly do the four or five things we talk about,” he said before discussing those actions, including mask-wearing, social-distancing and avoiding crowds.

Polis was joined by Fauci – a pandemic-era household name, given his frequent media appearances and clashes with the Trump administration’s virus response – for the governor’s first news conference since testing positive for COVID-19 on Saturday, along with his partner, Marlon Reis.

Polis said he was “grateful” to report that he and Reis “continue to do well,” with only mild symptoms.

“This is just such a lottery when you get this thing,” he said of the sometimes deadly virus, adding that the state had confirmed 4,405 new cases Tuesday.

Not everyone will do as well with the virus as he and his partner have so far, Polis said, adding that “I’m certainly not out of the woods.”

“This could certainly take a different turn after several days,” he cautioned. ” … We have two small kids, and there’s a one-in-12 chance one of us could be in the hospital in a week. That’s a startling thing.”

Regarding how he may have contracted the virus, Polis noted that one in 41 Coloradans is currently estimated to be contagious.

“There are exposures I knew about. There are also the exposures I didn’t know about that I might have had,” he said. “Every time we interact with others – at the grocery store, walking your dog – you should make the assumption that person could be contagious.”

Fauci said he was pleased to see the governor faring so well.

“I’m really happy to see you’re doing fine,” he said, adding, “You’re a strong guy. I think your constituents should realize that you’re putting on a good face.”

Across the U.S., states are surging more dramatically than early in the year, at the onset of the pandemic in the U.S. A second, later surge of the virus in southern states brought up the baseline of infections. Now the country is seeing “a surge that has really surpassed the others, where we have between 100,000 and 200,000 cases a day, between 1,000 and 2,000 deaths per day, and over 90,000 hospitalizations,” Fauci said.

“This is something that is quite problematic,” he said. “To say it’s challenging is to really say the least.”

And it could get worse.

Given the holiday travel seen last week, “we are likely going to see a surge upon a surge,” Fauci said.

“Instead of thinking in terms of the Thanksgiving holiday and then the Christmas holiday as two separate events, I think we’re going to be looking at 30 or more days of precarious risk,” he said. “Even though we’re so-called out of the Thanksgiving season, we are rapidly going to emerge into the season of people shopping, crowding, preparing, perhaps even the ill-advised office parties, if they can exist anymore. Then the Christmas holidays, and then New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day.”

Coloradans should “avoid the things that are pleasant and desirable; they’re dangerous now,” Fauci said about holiday gatherings and parties.

But, “help is on the way,” he said, adding that about 40 million doses of vaccines for 20 million people will be allocated to states according to population in mid-to-late December.

January, February and March will see vaccines available for priority populations. Come April, vaccines will be available for the general population, Fauci said.

“Once we get there, we can crush this outbreak, just the way we did with smallpox, with polio and with measles,” he said. “We can do it; we just need to hang together a bit longer.”

Front-line workers in Colorado should be vaccinated later this month, and vulnerable populations early next year, Polis said.

But he urged Coloradans to not ignore the power of “a vaccine with 50% efficacy that’s already here, and it’s called a mask.”

Fauci urged Coloradans to not grow weary of taking precautions.

“Hang in there. We’re all in this together, governor,” he said. “Help is on the way. We are going to get out of this. We will get through this. We will be back to normal the way we were before this plague hit us.”

Polis said he gives President Donald Trump “great credit” for the success of Operation Warp Speed which called for rapid vaccine development. “We’re very grateful for all involved,” he said.

Regarding Denver Mayor Michael Hancock’s out-of-state holiday travel, Fauci said, “Mixed messaging, particularly from people in authority, is … not helpful” and “can actually be detrimental.