On Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Chief Medical Advisor, said the nation could get back to a “degree of normality” by next spring if more and more Americans get vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus, according to Forbes.
He said people should get vaccinated against COVID-19 as another variant could emerge if we allow the virus to fester.
Speaking on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show, Dr. Fauci predicted that millions of unvaccinated people may get immunized because the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted full approval to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine Monday.
The FDA’s move has served an extra vote of confidence, which could allow more employers and schools to mandate vaccinations, said Dr. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
He said he thinks a high vaccinate rate could give the Americans broad protection against COVID-19 by next spring, allowing people to safely return to restaurants and theaters, according to Forbes.
However, this outcome is not guaranteed. The highly contagious Delta variant has increased the rate of infections, delaying a full return to normalcy, noted Dr. Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
He said the virus could keep mutating if too many people remain unvaccinated.
In February, the NIAID director predicted a return to normality by early next year. In May, he said the nation could get “as close to back to normal as we can” by May 2022 if most Americans get vaccinated.
Dr. Fauci told Cooper, “This is a very wily virus. If we keep lingering without getting those people vaccinated that should be vaccinated, this thing could linger on, leading to the development of another variant which could complicate things.”
He went on to say that it is unclear what percentage of the American population needs to get vaccinated to reach “herd immunity,”
The CDC says more than 71% of Americans aged 12 and above are at least partially vaccinated against COVID-19, which means the remaining tens of millions of eligible people are not yet protected.
On Monday, President Joe Biden considered the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine a turning point that could reinvigorate immunization efforts. He has been urging unvaccinated people to get immunized as soon as possible. He has also been asking employers to require their staff to get vaccinated.
Nearly 31% of unvaccinated Americans told the Kaiser Family Foundation in June that they are more likely to take a COVID vaccine if the FDA fully approves it. The article was published in Forbes.
