The US is out of the Covid-19 pandemic phase, Dr. Fauci says

For now, the U.S. is 'not in the pandemic phase,' Fauci says Though the coronavirus remains a deadly public health emergency around the globe, the United States is no longer in a pandemic phase, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden. PBS NewsHour

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“We don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths [each day],” Fauci told the PBS NewsHour’s anchor and managing editor Judy Woodruff on Tuesday.

At the same time, “if you look at the global situation, there’s no doubt this pandemic is still ongoing,” he said.

In order to maintain low levels and keep the nation “out of the pandemic phase,” Fauci said the U.S. would have to intermittently vaccinate people at a frequency yet to be determined — possibly every year.

“We’re not going to eradicate this virus,” said Fauci, who has helped lead the national response to COVID-19 for more than two years.  ...

... The official known numbers of U.S. infections and deaths from the coronavirus – expected soon to surpass 1 million – are believed to be undercounts of the real toll.

“I am virtually certain that we are undercounting the number of infections,” Fauci said, adding that he thinks the U.S. should be able to track them better. But to him, the undercount is also a sign of good news – that hospitalizations currently are not growing in proportion to new cases driven by BA.2, a more transmissible variation of omicron that is now the dominant strain.

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