Americans could be wearing masks in 2022, Dr Anthony Fauci warns as US death toll nears 500,000

FILE PHOTO: House Hearing on COVID-19 Response in Washington, DC
Dr Anthony Fauci
REUTERS
Leah Sinclair22 February 2021

Dr Anthony Fauci has suggested Americans could be wearing masks until 2022 to protect against the coronavirus.

Dr Fauci discussed the use of PPE on CNN’s State of the Union, and was asked whether he thinks Americans will still need to wear masks next year, which he said is “possible”.

"You know, I think it is possible that that’s the case and, again, it really depends on what you mean by normality", he said.

“If normality means exactly the way things were before we had this happen to us, I can’t predict that”.

He added that as the country approaches the latter part of the year, he believes there will be a “degree of normality” but it will depend on “the level of dynamics of virus that’s in the community”.

“If you see the level coming down really really very low, I want it to keep going down to a baseline that’s so low that there is virtually no threat,” said the chief medical adviser.

“If you combine getting most of the people in the country vaccinated with getting the level of virus in the community very very low then I believe you’re gonna be able to say that for the most part, we don’t necessarily have to wear masks”.

Mask wearing has become mandatory in 35 states, including California, New York, Texas and Oklahoma.

States including Alaska and Missouri encourage people to wear masks in public, but it is not state ordered.

Dr Fauci’s comments come as the United States reaches a grim milestone as the number of deaths is close to surpassing 500,000.

“It’s nothing like we have ever been through in the last 102 years, since the 1918 influenza pandemic,” Dr Fauci added.

It’s said that the milestone could be passed on Monday and President Joe Biden will mark this with a moment of silence and candle lighting ceremony at the White House.

The first known deaths from the virus in the US happened in February 2020 in California.

It took four months to reach the first 100,000 deaths and the toll hit 200,000 deaths in September and 300,000 in December.

The U.S. virus death toll reached 400,000 on January 19 and is now on the brink of reaching the half a million mark.

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