Life should return to normal, more or less, by Christmas, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted Thursday.
In an interview with MSNBC, the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases warned that there were many variables at stake and return to some kind of normalcy “it’s not a mathematical formula … it’s a matter of estimates ”. But he agreed with President Joe Biden’s estimate that things will begin to return to normal “by the end of the year, by Christmas.”
It may not be exactly like pre-pandemic life. Fauci said theaters and restaurants are likely to still have a reduced capacity and “Maybe you’ll have to wear masks” in public.
“But all of these are estimates and a lot of things can happen to change it” for better or for worse, he said. One concern is that new variants of COVID-19 could cause infections to increase again, which could interfere with this timeline.
Fauci also said that once vaccinated, people will still have to separate low-risk contact from higher-risk public activities.
He said family dinners and hugs with vaccinated friends should be fine, but some public outings could still be limited, depending on the amount of vaccination of the general population.
As of Thursday night, the United States had reported 27.9 million cases of coronavirus and more than 493,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.