Dr. Fauci on why the U.S. is 'out of the pandemic phase'

[Ms. Toad]

44. If you don't like my credentials,

Then perhaps you'll like the credentials of a bunch of Philly epidemiologists better:

For a deep dive into the evidence, we spoke to three epidemiologists who’ve been tracking COVID since the start: Maciej Boni of Pennsylvania State University, Thersa Sweet of Drexel University, and Abby Rudolph of Temple University.

What’s called a ‘pandemic’ anyway?
The words pandemic and epidemic are sometimes used in everyday conversation to suggest “a lot of cases.”

But we see lots of cases of flu every winter, and in most years, it isn’t called an epidemic.

Instead, an epidemic means a sudden rise in cases above what is expected. A pandemic is an epidemic occurring in multiple countries.

With COVID, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic to be underway in March 2020, after the virus had spread to more than 100 countries. Before long, it would indeed reach them all.

Yet it’s not correct to say that any one country is or isn’t in a pandemic phase, as that term applies to multiple countries, said Rudolph, an associate professor at Temple’s College of Public Health. That is, the U.S. could emerge from the epidemic phase while a pandemic remains underway globally.

So Fauci was wrong?
Technically, yes. The pandemic remains underway, even if maybe the U.S. might be emerging from the epidemic phase.

https://www.inquirer.com/health/coronavirus/anthony-fauci-news-covid-19-how-end-20220429.html

Or, perhaps even Dr. Fauci, when he "clarified" his misstatements.

Upon realizing he had overstated things, Fauci quickly made the rounds with the Associated Press and the Washington Post, acknowledging that no, we’re not quite there yet.

And, as to whether it is safe to go back to normal, you need to look farther than 4 x vaccinated Dr. Fauci's actions as to the correspondent's dinner:

Washington — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has decided not to attend the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner after making a personal assessment about the risk of COVID-19, he told CBS News on Wednesday.

His options were:

Attend without a mask, eat, and drink because, after all, he had just declared the pandemic over in the US
Attend with a mask, remove it while actively eating and drinking
Attend with a mask and avoid eating and drinking at all (remaining 100% masked)
Not attend at all.

Even with vaccinated and double boosted, Dr. Fauci did not feel it was safe enough to attend - even with a mask worn 100% of the time.

Once again, Dr. Fauci arrived at the same position I had taken earlier (and been blasted for), but was late to the party. As has happened every single time we have disagreed as to COVID.