Washington: US top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci does not sound as confident as the American President when it comes to the nation’s current Covid status.
On Monday, Fauci said the US is not where it needs to be regarding the Covid-19 pandemic, a day after Joe Biden said that “the pandemic is over”.
In a talk with the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, Fauci said that much depends on how the country handles future virus variants.
“How we respond and how we’re prepared for the evolution of these variants is going to depend on us,” Fauci was quoted as saying by The Hill .
Fauci raised concerns that only 67 per cent of the country was vaccinated and “only one-half of those have received a booster shot”.
Fauci noted that more than 400 deaths in the country were being reported daily due to Covid.
Fauci’s comments came a day after Biden declared “the pandemic is over” during an interview with CBS News that aired Sunday evening.
“We still have a problem with Covid,” Biden said. “We’re still doing a lot of work on it…but the pandemic is over.”