COVID Is Endemic: Health Officials Won’t Declare Victory

Dr. Anthony Fauci sometimes changes the numbers on us, doesn’t he? You may remember when he shifted his prediction for when the U.S. would reach herd immunity to COVID-19. Was it new evidence about the disease? No — of course not. “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.” He actually had told the New York Times possibly as much as 90 percent vaccination was required.

This week we had another shift. Back in March of this year, Fauci told CNN that the U.S. shouldn’t ease restrictions to prevent COVID-19 until the number of new coronavirus cases falls below 10,000 daily. We got very close to this number in the early summer months before the Delta wave hit. Last week the U.S. reported a daily average of nearly 83,500 new COVID cases. Fauci said that COVID cases may need to fall to 3,300 per day to enable a return to what he called “a degree of normality.”

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Michael Brendan Dougherty

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review Online.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci sometimes changes the numbers on us, doesn’t he? You may remember when he shifted his prediction for when the U.S. would reach herd immunity to COVID-19. Was it new evidence about the disease? No — of course not. “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.” He actually had told the New York Times possibly as much as 90 percent vaccination was required.

This week we had another shift. Back in March of this year, Fauci told CNN that the U.S. shouldn’t ease restrictions to prevent COVID-19 until the number of new coronavirus cases falls below 10,000 daily. We got very close to this number in the early summer months before the Delta wave hit. Last week the U.S. reported a daily average of nearly 83,500 new COVID cases. Fauci said that COVID cases may need to fall to 3,300 per day to enable a return to what he called “a degree of normality.”