In a conversation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Fauci, Biden’s top adviser on COVID-19 who last month announced his pending departure from the administration, said much depends on how the country handles the future variants of the virus. “How we react and how we prepare for the evolution of these variations will depend on us. And that gets to the other conflicting aspect of this – is the lack of uniform acceptance of the interventions that we have available to us in this country where even now, more than two years, close to three years into the outbreak, we only have 67 percent of of our population has been vaccinated and only half of them have received a single boost,” Fauci said. He noted that the country is still experiencing more than 400 daily deaths due to COVID-19, although this number is down from a year earlier. “But we’re not where we need to be if we’re going to be able to, quote, ‘live with the virus,’ because we know we’re not going to eradicate it. We only did it with one virus, which is smallpox, and that was very different because smallpox doesn’t change from year to year, or decade to decade, or even century to century,” Fauci added. “And we have vaccines and infection that confers immunity that lasts for decades and possibly for life.” The Hill reached out to the White House for further comment. Defense and National Security — Russia-Ukraine war tops agenda for UN meeting On The Money — Strong dollar: America’s gain is Europe’s pain In a “60 Minutes” interview conducted Sunday, Biden, who recently recovered from a breakthrough case of COVID-19, told CBS News correspondent Scott Pelley that the country appears to be in “good shape.” to pass the pandemic phase. “The pandemic is over,” Biden said. “We still have a problem with COVID. We are still doing a lot of work on it. It is — but the pandemic is over. if you notice, no one wears masks. All appear to be in very good condition. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this is a perfect example.” Updated at 8:24 p.m
