COVID-19 pandemic restrictions could end "soon," even as early as this year, NIAID director Anthony Fauci told the Financial Times in an interview published Tuesday.
The big picture: Fauci explained that he does not believe "we are going to eradicate this virus," but said that it will instead reach an "equilibrium."
- "I hope we are looking at a time when we have enough people vaccinated and enough people with protection from previous infection that the COVID restrictions will soon be a thing of the past," Fauci said.
- Fauci added that he hoped restrictions would end "soon," agreeing with a suggestion that they could largely end this year.
State of play: Fauci also said that as the U.S. is "certainly heading out" of a particularly difficult phase of the pandemic driven largely by Omicron, local health departments will be the ones to make virus-related decisions instead of the Biden administration.
What he's saying: "As we get out of the full-blown pandemic phase of COVID-19, which we are certainly heading out of, these decisions will increasingly be made on a local level rather than centrally decided or mandated," Fauci said.
- "There will also be more people making their own decisions on how they want to deal with the virus."
