Anthony Fauci: ‘We Are Still in the Middle of a Pandemic’
Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned the world is “still in the middle of a pandemic,” less than two weeks after stating the U.S. was “certainly … out of the pandemic phase.”
“You said last week that we are out of the ‘acute component’ of the pandemic phase. In real terms, what does that mean for Americans?” Foreign Policy’s Ravi Agrawal asked, prompting Fauci to say that “we are still in the middle of a pandemic.”
“There’s no confusion about that. But when I say we’re out of the acute fulminant stage right now, what I mean is that cases have gone down dramatically,” he explained, noting that cases are ticking up a bit but they are “not going up in a very steep, fulminant way and they’re not associated with a concomitant increase in hospitalizations or the utilization of intensive care unit beds.”
“What that’s telling us is that 90-plus percent of our population has either been vaccinated and boosted or has gotten infected—or both. This is not protecting us specifically from infection, but it seems to be protecting us from that surge of hospitalizations that stressed the health care system during previous eras of this pandemic,” Fauci said, adding that it “remains to be seen” if there will be a virus surge in the fall.- READ MORE
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