Fauci: US ‘out of the pandemic phase’

President Biden’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said that the United States has moved “out of the pandemic phase” with COVID-19.

“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,” the infectious diseases expert said to host Judy Woodruff during an appearance on “PBS NewsHour.”

“So, if you’re saying if we are out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are,” Fauci added.

Fauci, however, warned that the U.S. was not going to “eradicate” the virus and said that globally the pandemic is “ongoing.”

“We’re not going to eradicate this virus,” Fauci said. “If we can keep that [viral] level low, and intermittently vaccinate people — and I don’t know how often that would have to be, Judy, that might be every year, that might be longer — in order to keep that level low.”

“Right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country. Pandemic means a wide spread throughout the world infection that spreads rapidly among people,” Fauci said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the daily average of COVID-19 cases in the United States is 47,407, while the daily average of deaths is 330. Daily hospitalizations are at just over 1,750.

The CDC also reports that about 83 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

In contrast, the daily case count on Jan. 10 was at 1,260,284 as the omicron variant surged throughout the nation.