Maybe US will have ‘some semblance of normality’ by 2022, says Fauci

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an online discussion on Wednesday that America will only begin seeing some fragments of normalcy maybe by 2022 after most of its citizens have been vaccinated.
• Further, the infectious disease expert said the US is not in a good place right now as COVID cases, which continue to escalate, are now averaging at 70,000 a day.
• Fauci further encouraged Americans to always wear a mask wherever they go if they don’t want to have another lockdown.

The nation’s leading disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci projected Wednesday that the US may not get back to normal until 2022 if a sizable proportion of the people won’t get vaccinated by mid-2021.

“I think it will be by the end of 2021, and perhaps even into the next year, before we start having some semblance of normality,” says Fauci in an online panel discussion this week with the University of Melbourne.

“We’re not in a good place. Now we’re averaging about 70,000 [cases] a [day]. That’s a bad position to be in,” said Fauci, who further urged Americans to wear a mask if they want to avoid another shutdown.

“We can’t have this very inconsistent wearing that you see, where you see some states that absolutely refuse to wear a mask,” he said.

Fauci’s comments come as COVID-19 cases across states continue to spike during the fall surge which the New York Times says the seven-day daily case count is calculated at 75,522.

According to Johns Hopkins University reports, the average number of new cases has risen by 21 percent this week versus the previous week. However, a CNN analysis of the COVID Tracking Project reports a 6.63 percent leap in the same period, quashing the idea that more testing contributes to more cases.

As of Wednesday, 40 states have recorded 10 percent jumps in new cases this past week versus the week before with nine states remaining steady and Missouri reporting as the only state with 10 percent fewer cases in the past week versus the previous week.

Source: The Hill