The Pandemic Isn’t Over, Fauci Says, however It’s Getting Better

Oct. 5, 2022 – Anthony Fauci, MD, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, stated this week that he isn’t able to say that we’re nearing the top of COVID-19. But as a rustic, we appear to be heading in the right direction, Fauci stated throughout a digital dialog for the University of Southern California’s Annenberg’s Center for Health Journalism. 

This comes simply 2 weeks after Biden stated that “the pandemic is over” on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Last month, the World Health Organization additionally stated the top of COVID is in sight. 

“It’s obvious that [the president’s statement] could be problematic because people would interpret it as ‘it’s completely over and we’re done for good,’ which is not the case, no doubt about that,” Fauci stated. 

Instead, he interpreted the remark as a reference to the nation’s enchancment in case numbers and loss of life charges over the past a number of months — that the worst is probably going behind us. 

Fauci, who has been the topic of harsh criticism for his public messaging, chooses his phrases rigorously, even with the promise of a brighter future forward.

“I think it would be cavalier to all of the sudden say we’re through with [COVID],” he stated. “Because remember, we were going in the right direction in the summer of 2021, and along came Delta. Then in the winter, along came Omicron. And since then, we’ve had sublineages of Omicron.” 

Especially because the winter months strategy, Fauci stated, precautions nonetheless have to be taken to cut back the probabilities of one more spike. When requested in regards to the precautions that he himself takes, Fauci defined that he nonetheless does not go to indoor, sit-down dinners. He continues to attend receptions — noting that the majority of them are outside — with no masks on, but when he’s in an indoor setting “for a considerable period of time,” he retains a masks on. 

A big portion of the dialog additionally mirrored on the teachings that may be discovered from blended messages delivered by public well being consultants, together with Fauci, throughout each the COVID pandemic and the more moderen developments in monkeypox. 

“I have tried always to give the hard truth, but very often the hard truth is not heard under the circumstance under which it’s given,” Fauci stated. He blames social media for the misrepresentation of public feedback and the unfold of misinformation for the general lack of readability that many have attributed to his and the CDC’s statements relating to COVID. 

Fauci stated that if he might return and do sure issues in a different way, he would. If he had the selection, he would have tried to be far more cautious in the course of the early months of the pandemic in underlining the uncertainty of the scenario we had been going by way of. 

The main shortcoming the U.S. continues to face relating to the pandemic is the resistance to getting vaccinated and in the end boosted for COVID, Fauci added. And in relation to vaccines, he doesn’t see the message as polarizing. 

“People say [I’m a] polarizing figure,” Fauci stated. “Well, when I say we should get vaccinated because it saves lives, and someone says no, am I the polarizing figure? Or is the person who is saying something that’s completely untrue creating the polarization?”