Dr. Fauci on why the U.S. is 'out of the pandemic phase'

[nitpicker]

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/dr-fauci-on-why-the-u-s-is-out-of-the-pandemic-phase-2#transcript

Dr. Fauci on why the U.S. is ‘out of the pandemic phase’
(snip)

We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase. 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. What we hope to do, I don't believe — and I have spoken about this widely — we're not going to eradicate this virus. If we can keep that level very 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. But, right now, we are not in the pandemic phase in this country. Pandemic means a widespread, throughout the world, infection that spreads rapidly among people.

So, if you look at the global situation, there's no doubt this pandemic is still ongoing.

[Lovie777]

1. I'll believe him over any GQP . . ..

[Dr. Shepper]

2. According to his definition

SARS-CoV-2 is still a pandemic.

“Pandemic means a widespread, throughout the world, infection that spreads rapidly among people.”

Widespread - check
Throughout the world - check
Spreads rapidly - check

[Hugin]

4. That's my take on the statement as well.

Plenty of parsing going on in the article.

Bottom line is there is still a global pandemic.

[Zeitghost]

15. Yes

But not in the US, if you believe the good Dr, which I do.

[Hugin]

17. Currently.

With the sky COVID friendly again, it is a matter of when and not if it will flare up again. Like the last two pauses, efforts should be focused on further mitigation instead of partying like it’s 2019.

[Zeitghost]

21. I've been on a number of fights in the last two years

Everyone wore their masks, right up until they passed out food and drink... Then we all spent 20 minutes nursing a ginger ale and eating snacks while packed into our seats. I'm not sure the lifting of the mask requirement will have much an effect, especially now that almost everyone is vaccinated or recovered and in many cases both.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. "I'm not sure the lifting of the mask requirement will have much an effect"

Sure it will... over time as long as the thing keeps mutating and if our immune systems can't adjust quick enough to say - "Hey? Haven't I seen this before???".

The point of it is not to have ZERO (you would need a biohazard suit for that). It's to "reduce" ( "mitigate" ). Meaning during those 20 minutes of neither being masked, when you have someone who is unvaccinated but doesn't have a high viral load, someone who is vaccinated sitting next them won't potentially get as much of a load of it and if they did get some, their immune system can generally get moving fast enough and effectively enough to clear it.

But if you have the same situation without a mask and exposed for hours at a time and no proof that the person next to you was ever vaccinated or even contracted it, then all bets are off.

This is not to say that we are not in a WAY BETTER place now than even a year ago, but then a year ago, the vaccines had only been available for the most vulnerable for about 4 months and then the "throw off your masks" recommendation came (May 13, 2021), and next thing you know, a month or two later, Delta came blasting through, in the middle of the summer mind you, quickly followed by Omicron.

And Omicron really got going a month after the "Travel Ban" of foreign visitors to the U.S. was lifted (and that was primarily only allowing the "vaccinated" to come in - if they could "prove it" (and we know there were fake vaccine cards)).

https://www.businessinsider.com/cdc-graph-shows-difference-between-omicron-variant-previous-coronavirus-surges-2022-1



And as annotated -



We just have to hope that with the latest variants seemingly infecting hosts, reproducing, and dying out faster and faster with each new (viable) mutation, that it starts to burn itself out soon.

[Zeitghost]

26. Masks can certainly slow the spread

If they are worn properly all the time. The problem with the masks on a plane rule were they understandably allowed for significant periods of time where they did not need to be worn so people could eat and drink. Combine that with extremely contagious variants like Omicron and it's derivatives and you get very little real world benefit.

If you're sitting next to an asymptomatic but contagious person with Omicron and you're both properly wearing masks the entire time, you have a good chance of not catching it. If you both spend two 15-20 minute periods eating and drinking, it doesn't really matter that you spent the rest of the flight with your mask on. On my trip to Hawaii last November, the flight attendant who barked at a guy for his mask slipping under his nose as he boarded didn't utter a peep as he spent a 4 hour flight sucking on lollypops and sipping his water with his mask off. Like much of airline security, it's largely theater meant to keep people thinking they are doing something productive.

It's for that reason as well as the number of people that now have significant protection from the most serious effects that I believe the lifting of some mandates will not cause significant problems.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. "Masks can certainly slow the spread"

THAT is probably one of the biggest points many of us have made. "To 'slow' or 'reduce' the spread". It won't be eliminated (and this is where those who specialize in droplet and particle sizes start getting into the unnecessary weeds about simple masks - completely forgetting that a sneeze will never have perfectly identical droplet or particle sizes that will always pass through a "large weave" of a surgical mask ).

But based on what you noted, it is an issue dependent on the amount of time that state of being "unmasked" goes on, which would be dictated by your total flight time (or actually, time-in-cabin - and obviously including the time sitting waiting to taxi, taxiing, then waiting to take off, etc).

So for someone on a "short" (a couple hours or less) flight, it might not be as much of a big deal. But for something like a non-stop east coast to west coast (that can be 5 hours) flight or for a long haul or international flight - and I know that when I traveled from here in Philly to both Hawai'i going one direction and to Cairo, Egypt going the other direction (each about 6,000 - 6,500 miles away), the flights were 11 hours, and the exposure time was obviously much longer. Alternately, my flights to California (both L.A. & San Francisco) and to Washington state (Seattle) were both about 5 hours. It was also about that long to go to London from here.

Proper ventilation (and not just the knee jerk repetition that "airlines always filter their air and have excellent air handling (which is a bit of B.S. P.R.)), suggests the consideration of getting some HEPA filtration into those HVAC systems (and in other facilities), which can go a long way to mitigation (as long as the systems are maintained) and precluding the need for masking (unless obviously someone is showing symptoms of some respiratory illness).

The fact that Public Health officials have reported remarkable low incidences of both cold and flu (and other respiratory viruses) during the pandemic when simple mitigation strategies were deployed, is the perfect example of how well this can work.

[Hugin]

38. Thanks for the meaty posts, BR.

Much to think about.

[BumRushDaShow]

39. Sorry for the

(sometimes too much) "meatiness" but you are welcome.

This stuff is so complex but then writing it out helps me to make sense of some of it.

[Hugin]

37. Omicron was spread globally in less than a month due to air travel.

Delta had a similar timeline.

[Ms. Toad]

23. Yes. And I am extremely disappointed in Dr. Fauci

for using well-defined medical terms improperly.

His words provide confirmation bias for those who are inclined to believe COVID is no longer a serious threat. The reality is that this disease impacts more systems within the body that there are likely to be long-term impacts from having COVID - similar to polio (post-polio syndrome which emerges decades later), or chicken pox (shingles).

We have far too little data (since it's only been around 2 years) to focus solely on minimizing the immediate impact of the disease, rather than continuing to focus on eliminating transmission of the disease.

The things we do know about long-term impact suggest that this is not an innocuous disease - even when mild. There is a risk of increased cardiac events for at least two years. We don't know if it is permanent, since we don't have a population which had COVID decades ago. There are ongoing impacts on cognitive function (executive function, memory, size of brain) for at least 2 years. We don't know if it is permanent, since we don't have a population which had COVID decades ago.

In addition - long COVID is real, and common.

It is estimated that anywhere from 10% to 30% of patients might experience long COVID after recovering—even if they weren’t very sick in the first place. This leaves many COVID long-haulers with questions about symptoms and what to do. One physician aims to clear up confusion about long-haul COVID-19 and what patients can expect.

Long COVID—or post-COVID conditions—is a wide range of new, returning or ongoing health problems people may experience more than four weeks after being first infected with SARS-CoV-2. Even people who did not have any symptoms can experience long COVID, which can present as different types and combinations of health problems and can range in lengths of time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-long-covid

(I have seen estimates which are as high as 50%.)

This sends the wrong message - just like the CDC announcement last May that masks are no longer needed was premature.

[Zeitghost]

27. Many of us have come to deeply respect Dr. Fauci

He has an impressive resume and is a world leader in public health. Would you mind sharing your medical and/or public health credentials so we can better understand your disappointment in the amazing Doctor that has lead us through this crisis?

[Ms. Toad]

30. While I agree that Dr. Fauci is, on the whole, fantastic -

Some of his actions as to COVID have fallen below that standard.

Formal medical and/or public health credentials are not necessary to understand the near-certain impact of announcing that certain people no longer need to wear masks - or of an announcement that the pandemic is over . Formal medical and/or public health credentials are not necessary to understand the science behind masks (initially - whether they are effective at all, and later whether they protect both the wearer and those around them).

I have coped for more than 3 decades with family illnessess which are both deadly and rare. Dealing with rare illnesses is not that much different from dealing with a new disease: In both cases, for different reasons, at the time decisions need to be made there are rarely solid peer-reviewed, double-blind studies to guide the decision. The skills I have developed in the past 3 decades have allowed me to (1) efficiently ferret out the relevant research which is available, (2) discard the trash research, (3) and make relatively quick extrapolations from teh relevant, solid, research.

I used those skills here. I have agreed with most of his work on COVID - but not all, and, on every issue with which I differed from Dr.A Fauci as to COVID, time has proven me right - and him wrong. As a general rule, where we differ, is is because I am more willing to make decisions on less information. I determined early on that masks were more likely to provide protection than not - at the time Dr. Fauci was announcing there was no reason for healthy individuals to wear masks. I determined early on that masks protect not only those around an individual, but the individual as well - at the time Dr. Fauci was promoting the "wear a mask to protect others" line. Subsequently, he acknlowedged he was wrong on those two issues. I determined early on that COVID was being spread by aerosolized matter (meaining masks were more critical than social distancing or excessive hand-washing because the aerosolized matter can spread far more than 6', and lingers long after the ill person leaves the room; so it matter far less whether you are 3' or 6' (the droplet distance) - and far more that you are wearing masks to protect against/prevent the spread of the invidible and lingering aerosolized threat) - again, at the time Fauci was touting 6' (and masking if less than 6' was possible).

I don't worship individuals - I evaluate their actions and the information they are providing against what I know or can learn from reviewing the medical literature. Fauci is human, with flaws. As to COVID, at least as to public pronouncement, his flaws are showing more than (for example) in his work with AIDS.

[Zeitghost]

31. So none then?

I'll stick with Dr. Fauci.

[Ms. Toad]

35. Then be prepared to be late to the party,

and to participate in spreading the next variant around.

I've got 3 decades of experience making medical decisions based on similar quantity/quality of evidence, on a short timeline. Using the skills I"ve developed out of necessity, I've diagnosed my daughter's rare disease (confirmed by her doctor after he relented and ran a test just to get me off of my back), predicted my current sarcoma (case studies suggested the lesion I had should be treated as pre-cancerous, even though none of the doctors treated me believed it was anything other than benign), and developed a treatment plan for a condition that previously had none (I am one of the very few individuals with V-TOS from the late 80s/early 90s with a completely functional arm on the impacted side). The third was at the express invitation of my doctors, who apparently care a whole lot less about paper credentials than you do.

Not to mention ultimately being proven right for the last 2 years on every issue on which Dr. Faucoi and I differed.

[Hugin]

40. I'm still waiting for your all's clear, Ms. T.

Please put me on speed dial.

We are in a much better place, but, there’s still some distance to cover.

[Ms. Toad]

44. If you don't like my credentials,

Then perhaps you'll like the credentials of a bunch of Philly epidemiologists better:

For a deep dive into the evidence, we spoke to three epidemiologists who’ve been tracking COVID since the start: Maciej Boni of Pennsylvania State University, Thersa Sweet of Drexel University, and Abby Rudolph of Temple University.

What’s called a ‘pandemic’ anyway?
The words pandemic and epidemic are sometimes used in everyday conversation to suggest “a lot of cases.”

But we see lots of cases of flu every winter, and in most years, it isn’t called an epidemic.

Instead, an epidemic means a sudden rise in cases above what is expected. A pandemic is an epidemic occurring in multiple countries.

With COVID, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic to be underway in March 2020, after the virus had spread to more than 100 countries. Before long, it would indeed reach them all.

Yet it’s not correct to say that any one country is or isn’t in a pandemic phase, as that term applies to multiple countries, said Rudolph, an associate professor at Temple’s College of Public Health. That is, the U.S. could emerge from the epidemic phase while a pandemic remains underway globally.

So Fauci was wrong?
Technically, yes. The pandemic remains underway, even if maybe the U.S. might be emerging from the epidemic phase.

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/anthony-fauci-news-covid-19-how-end-20220429.html

Or, perhaps even Dr. Fauci, when he "clarified" his misstatements.

Upon realizing he had overstated things, Fauci quickly made the rounds with the Associated Press and the Washington Post, acknowledging that no, we’re not quite there yet.

And, as to whether it is safe to go back to normal, you need to look farther than 4 x vaccinated Dr. Fauci's actions as to the correspondent's dinner:

Washington — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has decided not to attend the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner after making a personal assessment about the risk of COVID-19, he told CBS News on Wednesday.

His options were:

Attend without a mask, eat, and drink because, after all, he had just declared the pandemic over in the US
Attend with a mask, remove it while actively eating and drinking
Attend with a mask and avoid eating and drinking at all (remaining 100% masked)
Not attend at all.

Even with vaccinated and double boosted, Dr. Fauci did not feel it was safe enough to attend - even with a mask worn 100% of the time.

Once again, Dr. Fauci arrived at the same position I had taken earlier (and been blasted for), but was late to the party. As has happened every single time we have disagreed as to COVID.

[Doc Sportello]

32. A couple of points

One, you state that "long COVID is real, and common." and then quote from an article that states "anywhere from 10% to 30% of patients might experience long COVID after recovering". So you call it common and then in the article you quoted from there is first a caveat that they "might" experience long Covid and even then it could be as low as 10 percent. That isn't factual evidence that long Covid is common.

You also state effects from Covid that include a laundry list of ailments but that is not proven as of yet and many, many other diseases we routinely deal with also have long-term and other multiple negative outcomes, but we deal with them the same way we are dealing with Covid - vaccines and treatments.

And, as I've written in other posts, we really are talking about two different situations here: the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Yes, a small number of vaccinated and boosted people will suffer from long-term effects and some will die, but these are the same outcomes considered when deciding other public policies regarding disease. But the vast majority of the negative consequences will be among the unvaccinated population. The numbers to look at in this are for the vaccinated. We can't do anything about the unvaccinated and the public will not tolerate a return to more shutdowns and mask requirements - and the science says they are right.

[Ms. Toad]

34. It's not either/or. It's and.

Both vaccination, as a primary tool - and other means to prevent transmission. Vaccination, alone, doesn't prevent transmission - and (without masking) may actually increase transmission by people who have COVID - since vaccinated people are as contagious as unvaccinated, and are more likely to experience mild symptoms and attribute COVID to something else - and to just plow through it like they would a common cold.

As to data, thank you for making my point - there isn't enough data yet to know what happens long-term. What we do know about duration is that the consequences (and long COVID) last as long as we have been able to study them. Until we have more long-term data, the data we do have (i.e. the science) suggests this is not an innocuous disease, which is over once the virus clears the body. Until proven otherwise, we need to focus not only on mitigating the worst immediate symptoms, but also preventing transmission to minimize the class of people likely to have long-term consequences. Suggesting that the pandemic is over will have the opposite effect, as did the May announcement that certain classes of people no longer needed to wear masks.

As to common - from a medical perspective, when 10% of a population (in this case the population of people who have had COVID) develop something it is common.

[Doc Sportello]

41. So much wrong here

It's hard to know where to start. You were making claims about long-term that you didn't back up with any data, yet somehow claim I made your point. Lame deflection. And you do the same with your last sentence: you saying that 10 percent medically is common doesn't make it so, while totally ignoring the fact that the article you cited used the term "might" - which means a possibility, NOT A FACT as you claimed. Sam with the use of a double negative in saying "suggests this is not an innocuous disease". Suggests is not fact. No one said it is harmless.

What is being argued here is that it's time to view the overall statistics about Covid, and that arguing to go back to shutdowns and mask requirements in 2022 is not based on the science. Your pronouncements about measures to be taken are fine, but unrealistic and not justified by the science, no matter how much you wish it to be so. We should be thrilled by what has been done in fighting Covid, not trying to go back to 2020.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. "Because business and political leaders would prefer it that way."

[Hugin]

5. +1

Yep.

[BlackSkimmer]

18. Nailed it. nt

[Blues Heron]

6. We have been below 200,000 new infections/day for the vast majority of the pandemic.

The 900,000 /day was only at the very peak of the omicron spike.

[abqtommy]

7. Let's all buckle up and not become complacent. I'm sure that something worse is

coming and The WHO, CDC and Dr. Fauci can't convince me otherwise.

[Johnny2X2X]

8. If you're boosted, Covid is no longer a significant threat

The chances of getting very sick and being hospitalized from Covid if you've been boosted are less than the chances of being hospitalized from the flu next flu season. it's exceedingly low. We're talking only a hand full of people in the US dying a day right now who are fully vaxxed and boosted, much less than die daily from the flu in mild flu season.

So whether or not there's still a pandemic isn't the right question IMO, if you're fully vaxxed and boosted there isn't one that you need to worry about anymore than you worry about the flu during flu season. If you're one of the unvaxxed idiots...then you're probably not reading DU, the unvaxxed idiots still are at great risk for death and serious disease, but I don't really care about them anymore.

[speak easy]

9. ... until the next variant comes along.

Like the flu, there will always be the chance something truly nasty will break out. And like the flu, vaccines will need to be updated.

[Blues Heron]

10. its a virus you just dont want even if you dont get hospitalized

it can get in your system - kidney, brain, heart, in ways we are just finding out now. Keep masking folks, cases and hospitalizations are on the rise right now, and remember - it is not the flu despite the constant talking points to that end.

Here is a link to the CDC page that shows hospitalizations are up 15 percent from the previous week

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#new-hospital-admissions

[area51]

11. +1 n/t

[Johnny2X2X]

12. It's not the flu

But at this time, boosted people have less to fear from Covid than the flu, but that could change in the future. And serious flu can do all sorts of long term damage too to the brain, heart, kidneys, etc. Hospitalizations are up, but nearly all those hospitalized with Covid right now are unvaccinated fools. You're talking unvaccinated people being 97 times more likely to die from Covid than boosted people right now according to the CDC. It's a pandemic right now only for unvaccinated idiots, the rest of us are safer from Covid than we are from the flu in the mildest flu seasons. It's just not something to care much about right now if you're boosted IMO.

[SoonerPride]

13. This.

Thank you.

[Doc Sportello]

14. It's almost like we have two different viruses

Because we have two opposite solutions: get vaccinated and boosted - or not get vaccinated. People should stop lumping in the unvaccinated with the vaccinated, especially when it comes to the salient numbers of hospitalizations and deaths. If you just look at the outcomes for the vaccinated, the fight against a novel virus has been quite successful. As for the unvaccinated, they made their bed ... .

[Johnny2X2X]

16. I cannot agree more

And the CDC has the data, I wish they would have pushed vaccinated vs unvaccinated deaths and hospitalizations first and foremost in their daily news releases. It should have always been the lead of every Covid progress story. "500 people died of Covid yesterday, but only 4 were fully vaccinated with a booster. 450 were totally unvaccinated The rest were only partially vaccinated."

That could have saved lives. It could still save lives. It could reach vaccine hesitant people. It could also provide some perspective to boosted people on how low their risk really is. Instead, what we have is fully vaccinated and boosted people concerned over deaths and hospitalizations when the dead and hospitalized aren't them, and you have the unvaccinated idiots who think the dead and dying could be anyone regardless of vaccine status.

If you're boosted, at least for now, Covid shouldn't worry you in the least. And everyone has their own risk tolerance, so do what you feel is right for you, but the data is clear that boosted people are over this pandemic for the time being. Nothing wrong with wearing a mask, it protects others more than you, but just know that for the most part, the only others that need protection are the unvaccinated idiots.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

19. Kids younger than 5 still aren't vaxxed.

And as time goes on, we'll be paying a lot for the mass-debilitating event of long covid, which even vaxxed people can develop.

[Johnny2X2X]

20. Vaxxed people are 12-20 times less likely to get long Covid symptoms

Again, the CDC has fallen short on educating the public on the miracle the vaccines are. Even with Omicron, you are 4 to 5 times less likely to contract Covid if boosted than unvaccinated people. And if you do get Covid you're 3 to 4 times less likely to get long term symptoms, so that's 12-20 times less likely to get long Covid when you factor in that you're less likely to get it in the first place.

Again, get boosted, boosted virtually eliminates serious Covid. Luckily, children under 5 have always been at a very low risk for serious Covid.

https://time.com/6170315/omicron-covid-19-risks-kids-under-5/

[Doc Sportello]

22. Thanks for the true numbers

Some treat Covid as if it is 2020 instead of 2022. We have vaccines, treatments coming or already here that weren't available in 2020, and we now have a government run by competent people who are concerned with people's lives, not keeping their own personal reputation intact through cover-ups as with the previous cabal.

The only other number I would mention, and it is totally unscientific, but think of the billions and billions of personal interactions that have happened over the past month or so involving cashiers and customers, athletes, parties, etc. and then about the number of times, including here on this thread, about the upcoming "surge" that was going to happen after the Super Bowl, NCAA tournament, spring break, etc. that never did. Now it's air travel and when deaths and hospitalizations don't increase or only marginally, people forget about it.

The science and rationality support the views that Covid is here to stay, it is being controlled nationally and the government is doing a great job in dealing with it - for those who choose to get vaccinated.

[Johnny2X2X]

25. Very good recap

Yes, it's likely here to stay, but it's being controlled quite well right now.

I think a little of what we're dealing with is kind of shell shock. People are still just absolutely stunned that 1 million people died, most of them needlessly, from this disease in the US. I still cannot get over how Republicans willingly made the problem so much worse than it had to be. I saw it kill 2 people I know who are dead purely because of Republican lies about Covid. I saw it kill a 3rd person I know through no fault of his own. I saw it take another friend's father from a healthy vibrant person, to a chronically ill and near dying person because that friend's father didn't believe it was a threat and is still in denial.

It's been stunning, I don't blame people for erring on the side of caution right now. But I believed the CDC before and believe them now, if you're vaccinated and boosted, Covid is not a threat to you right now.

[greenjar_01]

33. Also, other viruses can result in longer term post-infection viral injury

Including influenza! Yes, there's a long flu, too, but we don't hear much about it because most cases eventually resolve, just as they do with longish/longer/long COVID. The idea that long COVID will be the cause of a mass debilitating event is speculation at best, but leans towards speculation tinged with apocalyptic ideology.

[beaglelover]

28. Excellent news! Time to get back to 2019 normal.

Even though that will probably take a few years given the supply chain issues.

[gldstwmn]

36. He had to walk that statement back:

Link to tweet

?s=20&t=zQNQOYyrXmgCE15kTuHZxQ

[Maggiemayhem]

42. I would like to remind people that a Trump appointed judge stopped the mask mandate.

Not the CDC or the White House (Fauci). Fauci does need to get his statements clearer. He is as confusing as the CDC.

[Meowmee]

43. We are not out of it as others pointed out above

And when did 500 deaths a day from a virus become ok anyway.