Pouch "US Clearly Out of Pandemic Phase"

Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)
[Photo by AP]

[Asia Economy Reporter Hyun-ui Cho] "The United States has definitely moved past the pandemic phase."

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), appeared on PBS on the 26th (local time) and said, "There are no longer 900,000 new infections per day, nor hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of millions of deaths."

However, Fauci diagnosed that the COVID-19 situation continues globally. He said, "Looking at the global situation, there is no doubt that COVID-19 is still ongoing," and added, "We will not be able to eradicate this virus."

He also added, "To maintain the current low levels of the virus in the United States, people need to get vaccinated intermittently, preferably annually."

In the United States, the spread of COVID-19 caused by the Omicron variant has rapidly weakened, with the weekly average of new daily cases, which once exceeded 800,000, sharply dropping to the 40,000 range.

Although the subvariant BA.2, which is more contagious than Omicron, has recently become the dominant strain and new cases have started to rise again, the increase is not explosive as it was during the Omicron wave.

Fauci said, "The actual number of infected people in the U.S. is likely higher than the statistics show. We need to better track infections," but also noted, "It is good news that hospitalizations are not increasing in proportion to new cases."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.