Leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci this week walked back his comments that the U.S. is “out of the pandemic phase.”
“I want to clarify one thing,” Fauci told NPR on Wednesday. “I probably should have said the acute component of the pandemic phase, and I understand how that can lead to some misinterpretation.”
On Tuesday, Fauci told PBS NewsHour that "we are certainly, right now, in this country, out of the pandemic phase.”
"Namely, we don't have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. So, if you're saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are," he said.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki also attempted to clarify Fauci’s comments on Wednesday.
“What Dr. Fauci was saying is that we are in a different phase of this pandemic, and that's absolutely true,” Psaki said. She added that “we also know COVID isn't over and the pandemic isn't over.”
