Most Americans have moved on from covid fear and worry and treat the disease as an endemic condition that is best handled by individuals assessing their own health choices and making plans that best suit them.
A few days ago, it seemed like White House medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci finally agreed with my statement last summer: The pandemic phase is over.
The United States is “certainly, right now, in this country, out of the pandemic phase,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on PBS’s “NewsHour” on Tuesday.”Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now. So if you’re saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are,” he said.On Wednesday, Fauci told CNN that his comments had been mischaracterized by some to mean that the pandemic is over, “which is not what I said.””We’re not over the pandemic. Don’t let anybody get the misinterpretation that the pandemic is over, but what we are in is a different phase of the pandemic,” he said. “A phase that’s a transition phase, hopefully headed toward more of a control where you can actually get back to some form of normality without total disruption of society, economically, socially, school-wise, etc.”Fauci noted that, in fact, Covid-19 cases are trending up again, though it’s not anywhere near the rise we saw over the winter with the Omicron wave.
Not 24 hours later, Fauci walked back that statement.
“We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase,” Fauci said, speaking with Judy Woodruff of PBS NewsHour.Fauci then walked back his comments Wednesday, saying “we are in a different moment of the pandemic.”“We’ve now decelerated and transitioned into more of a controlled phase,” Fauci told The Associated Press. “By no means does that mean the pandemic is over.”His comments came a day after he said on the PBS “NewsHour” that the U.S. was “out of the pandemic phase” and also told The Washington Post that the country was finally “out of the full-blown explosive pandemic phase.”
He “clarified” his earlier assessment.
Fauci – famed for his flip-flops on issues including masks – did not comment further on how his earlier remarks had been misconstrued – even though they appear to directly contradict his ‘correction.’He instead clarified that the COVID threat in the U.S. was not as ‘acute and accelerated’ as it was earlier in the pandemic and the nation had reached a new ‘decelerated and controlled’ phase of the pandemic over the past several months.’That does not mean we are out of the woods,’ he said, adding that the number of COVID positive cases is starting to ‘creep up’ again.The remarks which saw Fauci flip flop were broadcast by PBS NewsHour Tuesday night.
People are less than impressed by Fauci and his opinions.
Meanwhile, the press is trying to raise more concern about… an “omicron mutant.”
It’s a descendent of the earlier super-contagious “stealth omicron” and has quickly gained ground in the United States.BA.2.12.1 was responsible for 29% of new COVID-19 infections nationally last week, according to data reported Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And it caused 58% of reported infections in the New York region.The variant has been detected in at least 13 other countries, but the U.S. has the highest levels of it so far. Scientists say it spreads even faster than stealth omicron.Cases are rising in places with increasing levels of the BA.2.12.1 variant, such as central New York, suggesting something about it is causing it to out-compete others, says Eli Rosenberg of New York state’s health department.
The establishment and the media are clinging to covid as a life preserver as it faces a tidal wave of voter anger in November.
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