White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told the Financial Times on Tuesday that the US is exiting the “full-blown pandemic phase” of Covid-19, and that restrictions will soon be relaxed.
Fauci has been criticized before for flip-flopping on Covid rules, but his latest statement comes amid a government-wide wind down of containment measures.
“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 told the newspaper, referring to decisions on masking and vaccination.
Fauci added that he hoped restrictions will “soon be a thing of the past,” and speculated that people will need booster doses of Covid-19 vaccines “only every four or five years.”