Dr Fauci says it could be '2022' before things go back to normal because that's how long it will take to vaccinate everyone
Dr. Fauci has warned that the country or even the world won't return to 'normality' until 2022 because that's how long it will take for enough people to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Fauci, the Director of the CDC, was giving a talk over Zoom to The University of Melbourne in Australia.
He said: 'If we get a vaccination campaign, and by the second or third quarter of 2021 we have vaccinated a substantial proportion of the people, I think it will be easily by the end of 2021, and perhaps even into the next year, before we start having some semblances of normality.'
He said that he was 'very certain' there would be a vaccine in the next few months but it would take longer to roll out.
Dr. Fauci warned on Wednesday that it wouldn't be until 2022 that there would be 'semblances of normality' again. He was speaking on a virtual panel during a talk for The University of Melbourne
Fauci also criticized Americans who had turned wearing a mask into a 'political statement' and said if every state had complied with the same lockdown rules at the same time, things would have gone more smoothly.
'When we were trying to open up the economy again, or open up the country...and I was very much involved with Dr. Deborah Birx and putting together these guidelines, which were a gateway of Phase 1, Phase 2 – to tell you how you can gradually safely and prudently open up the country.
'If everybody had done that uniformly, I don't think we would be in the position we're in right now."
'Masks in the United States have almost become a political statement, and I know that was carried in the news globally, it was really ... very, very difficult.
'In fact, people were ridiculed for their mask, depending upon which side of a particular political spectrum you were at,' he said.
Cases in the US continue to increase but the death and hospitalization rate nationally is going down.
It indicates that the people becoming infected now are younger and healthier, and the hospital system is more equipped to handle the crisis than before.
In Europe, countries like Italy - which had one of the earliest and most severe spikes - are experiencing a second wave of infection and lockdowns.
Multiple vaccine trials were halted in the US earlier this year out of safety concerns but most have now resumed.
Multiple vaccine trials were halted in the US earlier this year out of safety concerns but most have now resumed