Fauci Spells Out How Far Away U.S. Is From Ending COVID-19 Pandemic

The U.S. is “still in pandemic mode” with new COVID-19 infections some 16 times higher than what’s needed to end the public health crisis, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In an interview with Axios published Thursday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said “the endgame is to suppress the virus.” But 160,000 new cases of the coronavirus per day is “not even modestly good control,” he declared.

“In a country of our size, you can’t be hanging around and having 100,000 infections a day,” Fauci explained. “You’ve got to get well below 10,000 before you start feeling comfortable.”

Last month, Fauci said the spread of the highly transmissible delta variant — responsible for the recent spike in infections nationwide — could be largely contained by the spring of 2022 if an “overwhelming majority” of unvaccinated people receive the shot. 

With more people inoculated with the vaccines, which are proven to be a safe and effective way of mitigating transmission and warding off serious illness, Fauci said “you’ll still get some people getting infected, but you’re not going to have it as a public health threat.”