The United States on the “threshold” of transition to living with Coronavirus: Top scientist Anthony Fauci

“There’s no way we’re going to destroy this virus,” said Anthony Fauci (FILE).

Washington:

Despite the spike in cases and record-high Covid-19 hospitalizations, the United States is nearing a “threshold” of transitioning to living with the coronavirus as a manageable disease, said Anthony Fauci.

Speaking to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the leading US scientist said it was impractical to eliminate Covid and that “Omicron, with its extraordinary level of efficient transmission, has never been yes, will eventually find everyone.”

“There’s no way we’re going to eradicate this virus,” he said, given its ease of transmission, its tendency to mutate into new variants and the large number of unvaccinated people.

People who are up to date with their vaccines are still well protected against serious outcomes, but the vaccine’s effectiveness against infection has decreased.

But “as Omicron goes up and down”, the country hopes to enter a new phase “where there will be enough protection in (the community), enough medicine so that when someone is infected and in the group high risk, Fauci said.

“When we get there, there’s going to be that transition and we’re probably on the threshold of that right now,” he said, noting that the country is currently recording almost a million infections a year. day, nearly 150,000 people are hospitalized and more than 1,200 people die daily, “we’re not at that point.”

Official data shows there are now 145,982 Covid-19 hospitalizations, although a significant percentage are thought to be hospitalized “because of” the disease rather than because of it.

Earlier, the 81-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases knocked out Republican Senator Rand Paul, a vaccine skeptic, for unleashing “madness” that threatens humanity. and harassed his family, in emotional congressional testimony.

Top officials for President Joe Biden, including Mr. Fauci’s chief medical adviser, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Rochelle Walenksy and acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, Pharmaceuticals (FDA) Janet Woodcock has been subpoenaed to testify before the Senate about the pandemic.

While many lawmakers focused their questions on the lack of adequate testing and confusion amid the new guidelines for how those infected should end quarantine, Paul, who has resisted the vaccine policy and refused to vaccinate, said Fauci was personally responsible for everyone’s deaths.

Paul has blamed Fauci for the hundreds of thousands of deaths that have occurred since Biden took office – even though the majority of those deaths were unvaccinated and health officials, including Fauci, has continuously campaigned for a vaccine.

‘Kindles the Crazies’

“You personally attack me and there is absolutely not a single piece of evidence of anything you say,” Fauci replied.

“Suddenly that sparked the madness out there and I was threatened with my life, harassing my family and my children with obscene phone calls.”

Fauci recounted that in late December, a man was arrested en route from California to Washington, D.C. armed with an AR-15 assault weapon and multiple magazines.

The man says he wants to kill Fauci, for what he says is blood on the scientists’ hands.

Fauci then swung out a print from Paul’s website that featured a “Fire Dr Fauci” banner next to an invitation to donate to the Republican campaign.

Although Omicron causes severe cases at a lower rate than Delta, it is reaching more people because of its extreme infectivity.

According to data from New York State, as of December 27, the age-adjusted vaccine’s effectiveness for hospitalization was 92%.

(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)