Fauci says US may not be back to normal till 2022 as COVID-19 cases continue to surge

Top US infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci warns that everyday life for many people may not return to normal until 2022, despite President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the coronavirus pandemic “will end quickly.”

Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a virtual interview with Melbourne University on Wednesday that the US won’t “start having some semblance of normality” until “the end of 2021 and perhaps into the next year.”

He said that the virus outbreak is “getting worse and worse,” as health officials recorded an average of 73,094 new cases per day over the last week — an increase of nearly 40% from two weeks earlier.

Trump claimed at a campaign rally last week that the pandemic was going to “end quickly.”

He said that “we’re rounding the turn, we’re rounding the corner, we’re rounding the corner beautifully.”

As of Tuesday, a total number of 8,858,024 confirmed cases, along with 227,700 coronavirus-related deaths have recorded across the nation, according to Johns Hopkins University data.