April 27, 2022 – After about two years of living in a pandemic, everyone everywhere is exhausted. Each new variant has brought new challenges, and industries across the world have struggled to stay afloat. However, the latest variant, BA.2, has struggled to take hold in the United States, even though cases are rising throughout the country. For now, the U.S. is in a brief respite that signifies that the country has moved “out of the pandemic phase,” according to Anthony Fauci, MD.
Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently spoke to Judy Woodruff on the PBS NewsHour. When asked about how close the U.S. is to moving out of the pandemic stage of COVID-19, Fauci said, “We are certainly, right now in this country, out of the pandemic phase. 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.”
He continued, “So, if you’re saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country, we are. What we hope to do, I don’t believe — and I have spoken about this widely — we’re not going to eradicate this virus. If we can keep that level very low, and intermittently vaccinate people — and I don’t know how often that would have to be, Judy. That might be every year, that might be longer, in order to keep that level low. But, right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country. Pandemic means a widespread, throughout the world, infection that spreads rapidly among people.”
These remarks also reflect those of Ashish Jha, MD, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator. During a news briefing, Dr. Jha said that the low number of new deaths was “still too high,” but observed that hospitalizations are the lowest point since the beginning of the pandemic. “Those figures, amid rising COVID-19 case counts suggests a promising turning point,” he said.