According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States is “still in pandemic mode” with new COVID-19 infections about 16 times higher than needed to end the public health crisis.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with Axios published Thursday that “the end is to suppress the virus.” But 160,000 new cases of coronavirus a day “are not even a good control,” he said.
“In a country our size, you can’t be and have 100,000 infections a day,” Fauci explained. “You have to go below 10,000 before you start to feel comfortable.”
Last month, Fauci said the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant – responsible for an increase in infections, especially among unvaccinated people – could be contained in the spring of 2022 if an “overwhelming majority” received the removed.
Fauci added that with more people inoculated with the vaccines, “you will still infect some people, but you will not have them as a threat to public health.”