National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that it will be “well into 2021” before the country returns to a “degree of normality” of pre-coronavirus times.
Mitchell said, “You’ve been talking about vaccines, the flu season is coming, of course, so there’s that as well. Let’s talk about vaccines and where we stand on a COVID vaccine. You’ve been cautiously optimistic, you’ve said, that something safe and effective, several vaccines could be available in early 2021. You said Wednesday on Instagram live that it might not be safe to go to movie theaters or similar indoor events, concerts, let’s say, until a year after we have an effective vaccine, to have it distributed widely enough. Can you explain? How long will it be before we get back to what we consider normal?”
Fauci said, “Yeah, Andrea, that response on my part was in response to a question that someone asked, when can we actually get back to normal as we know it, normal including with impunity going into a movie theater, which is indoors and enclosed. And I said what I’ve been saying all along, that I believe that we will have a vaccine that will be available by the end of this year, the beginning of next year. But by the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccinations and you get the majority or more of the population vaccinated and protected, that’s likely not going to happen until the mid- or end of 2021.”
He added, “So in direct response to that person question I said, if you’re talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to COVID, it’s going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021.”
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