Skip to main content

Fauci says things might not go back to normal until the end of 2021

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Friday that the world might not go back to normal any time soon, as the development of a vaccine against the coronavirus pandemic continues.

Recommended Videos

Fauci said in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that it may take more than a year to return “to a degree of normality” that resembles the situation before the pandemic.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

“It’s gonna be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021,” he said.

The timeline is tied to the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine and getting the majority of the U.S. population “vaccinated and protected,” which Fauci said is “likely not gonna happen until the mid or end of 2021.”

Fauci previously told a House panel in July that he is “cautiously optimistic” that a COVID-19 vaccine will be developed within the year. However, once the vaccine is proven to be safe and effective, it will still need to be mass-produced and distributed, which likely plays a factor in Fauci’s forecast of when the world will go back to where it was pre-COVID-19.

As of September 11, there are 6.42 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States, with about 192,000 reported deaths.

COVID-19 tests

While researchers continue to work on a vaccine, there has been major progress in the tests to detect COVID-19, which is one of the primary ways of fighting back against the pandemic.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization to a saliva-based testing method for the coronavirus. The method, named SalivaDirect, was developed by Yale University, and is less invasive than swab tests while maintaining effectiveness.

The FDA also recently granted the same authorization to the BinaxNOW test by Abbott Laboratories, a nasal swab procedure that takes just 15 minutes to produce a result and costs only $5.

Aaron Mamiit
Aaron received an NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was four years old, and he has been fascinated…
The FBI accuses China of trying to steal U.S. coronavirus vaccine research
coronavirus taiwan asia technology success science researcher getty

The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency have accused China of attempting to steal coronavirus vaccine research from the U.S.

“The FBI is investigating the targeting and compromise of U.S. organizations conducting COVID-19-related research by PRC-affiliated cyber actors and non-traditional collectors,” according to a joint announcement Wednesday.

Read more
Fauci says researchers may find effective coronavirus vaccine by ‘early winter’
Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci testified on Tuesday, May 11 that researchers should know if potential coronavirus vaccines are effective by early winter, and warned that lifting social distancing guidelines could cause "really serious” consequences, including the risk of future outbreaks of the deadly disease.

Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that clinical trials for coronavirus vaccines are currently underway in the U.S. and that results from those initial trials would come later this year. 

Read more
Evo fighting game championship will go online-only due to COVID-19
Jin vs Akuma in Tekken 7.

This year's edition of the Evolution Championship Series, Evo 2020 in Nevada has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but the fighting game event will still happen online.

Evo 2020 was set to run from July 31 to August 2 at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. However, the annual tournament is the latest casualty of the measures put in place to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.

Read more