The US is nearing the end of the “full-blown” phase of the COVID-19 pandemic — and virus-related restrictions may soon no longer be necessary, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
The White House chief medical adviser, 81, said all pandemic-related protocols, including mandatory masks in some settings, could end “soon,” the Financial Times reported.
“As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase, which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated,” Fauci said in an interview published Tuesday. “There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus.”
Though he didn’t give a specific timeline for lifting restrictions, Fauci said it was likely to be possible sometime in 2022.
But at the White House Covid-19 briefing Wednesday, which Fauci attended, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky warned American’s not to get ahead of themselves.
“Our hospitalizations are still high, our death rates are still high, so as we…are encouraged by the current trends, we are not there yet,” she said, in reference to allowing Americans to completely ditch their masks.
“At this time we continue to recommend masking in areas of high and substantial transmission, that’s much of the country right now in public, indoor settings,” Walensky added.
Still, the remarks signal the top doctors’ most optimistic take on the possible end of the virus that’s killed more than 909,000 Americans and more than 5.7 million worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins University data.
Every state in the US is seeing case numbers drop or stabilize following the surge fueled by the Omicron variant, data shows.
The seven-day average of new cases nationwide stood at 247,319 on Monday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That’s down some 69 percent from Jan. 15, when 805,624 cases were tallied. The latest seven-day average death toll stands at 2,404, compared to the Omicron-fueled peak average of 3,421 in mid-January, data shows.
New infections have also fallen rapidly across the globe, including in Africa and the United Kingdom, the Financial Times reported.
Fauci warned the virus won’t be completely eradicated, although health officials will likely soon reach an “equilibrium” where infection levels won’t need constant close monitoring.
“But I hope we are looking at a time when we have enough people vaccinated and enough people with protection from previous infection that the COVID restrictions will soon be a thing of the past,” Fauci told the newspaper.
And not every American will need regular boosters moving forward, he said.
“It will depend on who you are,” Fauci said of the need for booster shots. “But if you are a normal, healthy 30-year-old person with no underlying conditions, you might need a booster only every four or five years.”