The White House addressed Dr. Anthony Fauci’s assessment that the United States is “out of the pandemic phase.”
The pandemic “isn’t over,” despite more manageable COVID-19 case, hospitalization, and death rates, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
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“What Dr. Fauci was saying is that we are in a different phase of this pandemic, and that’s absolutely true,” she told reporters Wednesday.
Psaki went on to cite the White House’s new COVID-19 task force coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha, over President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser. In his briefing debut this week, Jha referred to the BA.2 omicron subvariant’s transmissibility and repeated how the public has the means to slow the spread of the virus, including vaccinations and boosters.
Psaki also commented on Fauci admitting he is skipping this weekend’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner because of coronavirus concerns.
“As you all know, he can speak for himself and his decisions,” she said.
Biden has opted to attend the event with certain precautions, Psaki added.
Fauci told PBS Tuesday that “we are certainly, right now, in this country, out of the pandemic phase.” But he clarified to CNN a day later that “we’re not over the pandemic.”
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“Don’t let anybody get the misinterpretation that the pandemic is over, but what we are in is a different phase of the pandemic,” he said. “A phase that’s a transition phase, hopefully headed toward more of a control where you can actually get back to some form of normality without total disruption of society, economically, socially, school-wise, etc.”
