Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Tuesday night that 70% to 85% of the United States population will need to be vaccinated to fight COVID-19 before we can return to normal.
- So far, about 2% of the population has received the vaccine.
- According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, 6,064,792 have received both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The U.S. population stands at about 330,000,000. Quick math shows that’s about 2% of the population has received both doses of the vaccine.
Fauci said that the United States will hopefully see 70% of the population fully vaccinated by summer and fall 2021.
- “Having said that,” he told CNN, “there is an absolute ‘but’ in that. And the ‘but’ is that we have to address the variants.”
He said the best thing Americans can do now is stop the virus from spreading and mutating.
- “The only way a virus mutates (is) if it can replicate. So if you vaccinate people and double down on public health measures and keep the level of viral dynamics low, we will not have an easy evolution into mutations,” Fauci told CNN. “That’s something that people really need to understand.”
- “The way you stop those mutations: Get vaccinated and abide by the public health measures,” Fauci said.
Return to normal by fall
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As I wrote about for the Deseret News, Fauci previously suggested the United States could return to normal by fall 2021. He said getting more vaccine centers and involving pharmacies could help the country improve how many vaccines it gives out, which would speed the timeline along.