Life should return to normal – more or less – until Christmas, predicted Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday.
In an interview with MSNBC, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases warned that there were many variables at stake and the return to some kind of normality “is not a mathematical formula … it is a matter of estimates”. But he agreed with President Joe Biden’s estimate that things will begin to return to normal “by the end of the year, at Christmas.”
It may not be exactly like pre-pandemic life, however. Fauci said theaters and restaurants are likely to still have a reduced capacity and “You may still have to wear masks” in public.
“But these are all estimates and a lot can happen to change that,” for better or worse, he said. One concern is that new variants of COVID-19 may cause infections to increase again, potentially interfering with this schedule.
Fauci also said that once vaccinated, people will still need to separate low-risk contact from high-risk public activities.
Family dinners and hugs with friends who have been vaccinated should be OK, he said, but some public outings may still be limited, depending on how much of the general population is vaccinated.
As of Thursday night, the United States recorded 27.9 million cases of coronavirus and more than 493,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.