Dr. Anthony Fauci said he doesn’t see the U.S. getting “completely” back to normal by this time next year and that a more global effort is needed in getting COVID-19 and its variants under control.
“I know we’re not going to get the world vaccinated in one year, but I would hope that we suppress the dynamics of this outbreak to the point where it may not be eliminated but it is under extraordinarily good control so that there can be some steps towards normality,” Dr. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Biden, told a virtual conference Tuesday hosted by the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, The National reported.
“I don’t think we’re going to be completely normal a year from now, but I hope we’re well on the way to normality so that we can ultimately get the world protected at the same time as we get economic recovery, so that all the unintended consequences of shutting down begin to normalize, including other health issues that have arisen because of the shutdown,” he continued.
Dr. Fauci said one of his biggest fears is that a decade or two from now people will forget “what we’ve been through” and the lessons learned during this pandemic. He said it’s important that “every single country” cooperate to “build global health security agendas and networks” for future outbreaks.
“It is important to realise that variants arise and if you suppress the virus in one country, but it is allowed to spread uninhibited in other areas of the world, sooner or later, the variants, the new lineages the mutants will come back and rekindle the outbreak, even in countries that seem to have it under control,” he said, The National reported.
“It’s absolutely critical that we all work together, every country in the world working together in solidarity and in cooperation,” he added.
Speaking Wednesday to CNN, Dr. Fauci said it’s “inexplicable” that some Republican governors in the U.S. have started rolling back restrictions and mask mandates in their states.
“I understand the need to want to get back to normality, but you’re only going to set yourself back if you just completely push aside the public health guidelines — particularly when we’re dealing with anywhere from 55 [thousand] to 70,000 infections per day in the United States,” he said.
• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.
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