Fauci Says the World Is Still in the First Stage of the Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic

The world is still only in the first phase of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a virtual appearance at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda conference this week.

The White House chief medical adviser, who has remained under scrutiny for continually flip flopping throughout the pandemic and dismissing questions regarding funding gain of function research at the Wuhan lab, said on Monday that the world is still in the first stage of the pandemic, “where the whole world is really very negatively impacted as we are right now.”

Four phases still remain, and those, as detailed in Fortune, include deceleration, control, elimination, and eradication.

Deceleration, Fauci contends, has yet to happen, as the U.S. has experienced another spike in cases with the omicron variant of the virus.

“It is an open question as to whether or not omicron is going to be the live virus vaccination that everyone is hoping for, because you have such a great deal of variability with new variants emerging,” Fauci said.

“Control means you have it present, but it is present at a level that does not disrupt society,” Fauci continued, although it remains unclear when or how the country will reach that point, as politicians and blue state leaders continue to reintroduce restrictions nearly two years after the pandemic began.

While Fauci and other federal health officials pitched vaccines as the avenue to reach a level of pre-pandemic normalcy, the country has yet to return to those days as the Biden administration continues to push masks and vaccination on the American public.

“I know we all wish that we could finally be done with wearing masks. I get it,” Biden said last week, despite originally pitching “just” 100 days of masking. “But there is a — they’re a really important tool to stop the spread, especially of the highly transmittable omicron variant. So, please, please wear the mask.”

Current U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance deems masking “a critical public health tool,” contending that “any mask is better than no mask” — even for the vaccinated.