Dr Fauci explains ‘out of the pandemic phase’ comment

Editor's Note

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, and chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, said in an April 26 interview with PBS NewsHour that "we are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase," NPR April 27 reports.

"Namely, we don't have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now,” Dr Fauci continued. A day later, he clarified his comments to NPR, adding: "I probably should have said 'the acute component of the pandemic phase.' And I understand how that can lead to some misinterpretation.”

In an interview with The Associated Press, Dr Fauci emphasized that we should still be mindful of the risk of COVID-19, saying: "We are in a different moment of the pandemic…we've now decelerated and transitioned into more of a controlled phase. By no means does that mean the pandemic is over."

NPR listed the following as reasons Dr Fauci cited for his view on the state of the pandemic in the US:

• vaccinations and infections are giving residual immunity (nearly 220 million people, or 66% of the US population, are fully vaccinated)
• even with a possible undercount of the number of infections, the US is in better shape than before
• COVID-19 will not be going away entirely, and our best hope is to maintain the disease at low levels of transmission and pursue intermittent vaccinations.

"We can't take our foot off the pedal," Dr Fauci told The Associated Press. "There's a lot of viral dynamics throughout the world, and we still may get another variant, which could lead to another potential surge."