Fauci said the pandemic was over in US, then backpedaled
Expert epidemiologists say COVID could become a seasonal illness like the flu
PHILADELPHIA — Anthony Fauci caused a stir this week when he said on national television that the United States was “out of the pandemic phase.”
Nationwide, epidemiologists cringed.
For one thing, the word choice by the nation’s infectious-disease chief was wrong, as we’ll explain below. But the bigger question is whether Fauci was correct to suggest that in this country, the worst might finally be over. There’s now evidence suggesting that more than 90% of Americans have some level of COVID-19 immunity.
Fauci later acknowledged that the world is still in the midst of a pandemic, but said the U.S. was past the “full-blown” phase of COVID, transitioning to a more predictable, “controlled” pattern over the long term.
Is he right?
For a deep dive into the evidence, we spoke to three epidemiologists who’ve been tracking COVID since the start.
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 University’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.
But cut the guy some slack. It is hard to boil down complex subjects into straightforward answers on live television.
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.
A similar thing happened during those early controversial weeks of the mask debate. At first, Fauci and other prominent physicians said there was no need for most people to wear face coverings. As more evidence emerged about how easily the coronavirus could spread through the air, he admitted he was wrong, and explained why.
What does COVID ‘normal’ look like?
Though it may feel as if COVID has been dragging on forever, it’s still a fairly new disease. So it is hard for expert disease-trackers to pinpoint when we have emerged from the epidemic or pandemic phase, reaching “normal” numbers of cases and hospitalizations. Everything about this has been abnormal.
Earlier in the pandemic, for example, surges in the spring and fall caught experts off guard.
But the two really big spikes came in the winter, and evidence suggests that in the future, the colder months may always see a rise in cases, said Sweet, an associate professor at Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health.
That’s due to a combination of factors, including that more people congregate inside and that the dry air makes their nasal passages less able to filter viruses. So COVID would become a seasonal illness like the flu, Sweet said.
“Even if that does happen,” she said, “the question is how severe is it going to get in the winter?”
In other words, what will normal look like? Hard to say for sure, but there are clues, said Boni, an associate professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University.
The key, he said, is to determine how many people have some level of immunity, whether through vaccination, infection or both.
Once that percentage reaches the mid- or high-90s, then public health officials can make reasonable predictions about the toll of disease from year to year. That’s why we have a good handle on the flu, as nearly everyone has been exposed to it in one form or another. Thousands still die each year, but most people are protected from severe disease, and the numbers follow a predictable pattern.