‘It is not over’: Fauci reverses after declaring US ‘out of the pandemic phase’

One day after saying in an interview that the U.S. is “out of the pandemic phase,” White House chief medical adviser and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci has reversed his position and insists he did not say what he said.

On Tuesday, Fauci said that the U.S. was in a good position with COVID-19 compared to the rest of the world. “We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase,” he told PBS anchor Judy Woodruff.

But on Wednesday, he told CBS News that comments have been misconstrued to suggest he said the pandemic has ended.

“We certainly cannot say the pandemic is over,” he said. “It is not over.”

Fauci attempted to clarify his comments, telling CBS that the U.S. is still dealing with COVID-19 even though it appears the country has entered a new phase of the pandemic. He said that compared to the previous two years, the spread of the virus is not “acute” and “accelerated,” that the U.S. is not experiencing thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of new daily cases each day. This current stage of the pandemic is “decelerated” and more “controlled,” he said.- READ MORE