Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Chief Medical Advisor to the President of the United States, has declared that the United States is “out of the pandemic phase” of Covid-19, but White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who is not a doctor, disagrees.
It happened during an appears he made on the PBS show “News Hour” where he was asked where we stand.
“Here we are, the end of April, the Spring of 2022. How close are we to the end of this pandemic?” host Judy Woodruff said.
“Well, that’s an unanswerable question for the following reason,” he said, “and I don’t want to be evasive about it, but let me tell you why I’m giving you that answer.”
“We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase,” he said, before explaining “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 if we are out of the pandemic phase in this country? We are. What we hope to do, I don’t believe I’ve spoken about this widely, we’re not going to eradicate this virus. If we can keep that level very low and intermittently vaccinate, and I don’t know how often that would be, Judy. That might be every year, it might be longer in order to keep the level low. But right now we are not in the pandemic phase in this country.”
“Pandemic meets a widespread throughout the world infection that spreads rapidly among people,” he said. “So, if you look at the global situation, there is no doubt this pandemic is still ongoing.”
It’s official! Fauci says “we are out of the pandemic phase”.
Good job! Two years to slow the spread!
pic.twitter.com/IyNPcyoCvO— Aaron Ginn (@aginnt) April 27, 2022
But speaking to reporters, after Fauci made his comments, Psaki said “We also know that “COVID isn’t over, and the pandemic isn’t over.”
Jen Psaki contradicts Fauci who said the U.S. is "out of the pandemic phase."
"COVID isn't over, and the pandemic isn't over." pic.twitter.com/uOZKKSiDZv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 27, 2022
CNN reporter Oliver Darcy also reported that Dr. Fauci has decided not to attend the White House Correspondent’s Dinner after assessing his own risk.
“The nation’s top doctor will no longer be attending the White House Correspondents Association Dinner this Saturday. Dr. Anthony Fauci had been invited to attend as a guest of ABC News and had planned on going, sources familiar with the matter told Kaitlan Collins and me. But he recently decided to abandon those plans and inform ABC that he would no longer attend because of an individual assessment of his own personal risk, the sources said,” Darcy reported.
“Fauci’s decision comes amid concerns that the event could become a superspreader like the annual Gridiron Dinner held weeks ago, even though the WHCA is taking all the expected Covid precautions. Fauci’s decision also comes as the omicron sub-variant sweeps the nation,” he said. “President Biden still plans on attending the dinner, Jen Psaki said in the briefing room Tuesday.”
