Can we eradicate Covid-19? Not according to US disease expert Anthony Fauci

Biden’s chief medical adviser says America’s best protection against the coronavirus is mass vaccination

According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the US is still averaging more than 88,000 daily cases and just under 400 deaths per day

Reading Time:3 minutes

Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert who became a household name, and the subject of partisan attacks, during the pandemic, announced on Monday he will depart the federal government in December after more than five decades of service. PhotoAP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Pool, File)

Published: 2:14pm, 24 Aug 2022Updated: 5:50am, 25 Aug 2022

Corrected [5:44am, 25 Aug, 2022]

[5:44am, 25 Aug, 2022]
Dr Anthony Fauci heads the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, not the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, as reported in an earlier version of this article.

While Dr Anthony Fauci, who became both a reassuring and politically polarising voice during the pandemic, is retiring from public service in December, he has still got a lot to share.

In an interview with USA Today, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases says the world might be opening up again, but that does not mean the pandemic is behind us.

“I think that when you talk about new normal, you have to focus predominantly on Covid,” said Dr Fauci. “We have the emergence of infectious diseases more often than people realise. Many of them are relatively insignificant at a global level.”

Fauci pointed to the Ebola outbreaks in West Central Africa and the Zika outbreak in Brazil, which spread to other areas on a much smaller scale than Covid-19.

“You’ve got to put it into the context that we are still in a pandemic now that it is in its third year. When we get to January of 2023, that will be the third year anniversary of a historic pandemic in which we’ve had surprisingly, but unfortunately, tragically multiple variants in surges,” Fauci said. “That really is historic.”

Select Voice

Choose your listening speed

Get through articles 2x faster

1.25x

250 WPM

Slow

Average

Fast

00:0000:00

1.25x