Top infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci has given an upbeat assessment of the state of the coronavirus in the United States, saying the country is "out of the pandemic phase"
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He said that a transition to COVID-19 becoming an endemic disease - occurring regularly in certain areas - appears to be underway.
Fauci said on the PBS NewsHour on Tuesday that the coronavirus remains a pandemic for much of the world but the threat is not over for the US, adding that he was speaking about the worst phase of the pandemic.
"Namely, we don't have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalisations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now," he said.
In comments on Wednesday to The Washington Post, however, Fauci seemed to clarify his earlier remarks, saying that unlike the "full-blown explosive pandemic phase" during the brutal winter Omicron surge, he was describing what appears to be a period of transition toward the coronavirus becoming an endemic disease.
"The world is still in a pandemic. There's no doubt about that. Don't anybody get any misinterpretation of that. We are still experiencing a pandemic," Fauci told the newspaper.
His comments come as health authorities wrestle with how to keep COVID-19 cases and hospitalisations manageable and learn to live with what is still a mutating and unpredictable virus.
US President Joe Biden's administration has stressed that the country has more tools - vaccinations, booster shots and medications - to better handle infections than earlier in the pandemic.
US cases are far lower than they were in recent months.
But health officials are keeping a close eye as highly contagious variants continue to spread.
Australian Associated Press
