Dr. Fauci says vaccine likely in a few months, but life won’t return to normal until end of 2021
WASHINGTON, DC -- The U.S. might not return to pre-coronavirus life until the end of next year, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.
"I believe that we will have a vaccine that will be available by the end of this year, the beginning of next year," he told MSNBC -- but with a caveat.
"By the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccinations, and you get the majority, or more, of the population vaccinated and protected, that's likely not going to happen to the mid or end of 2021," he said.
"If you're talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to Covid, it's going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021," he added.
Nearly 30 U.S. states are reporting downward trends in Covid-19 cases, but the pandemic will likely worsen again, said Fauci, the country's leading infectious disease expert.
"We need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter because it's not going to be easy," he said.
Experts -- including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director -- have warned the months ahead will be challenging. The U.S. continues to see about 36,000 new cases each day -- which is better than August but still too high, Fauci said.
"I keep looking at that curve and I get more depressed and more depressed about the fact that we never really get down to the baseline that I'd like," he said.
Factors could drive Covid-19 numbers up this fall. Colleges have become hotspots. And when students return home -- which health officials have urged against -- they could transmit the virus to more communities.
As the weather gets colder, Americans will move indoors more, where the virus spreads more easily.
The coming flu season will complicate diagnoses. The strains on the healthcare system will make for one of the "most difficult times that we experienced in American public health," CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield has said.
