On April 27, 2022, Antony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the President, announced that the country was now exiting its “pandemic phase”. He elaborated, saying that the country was transitioning into a time of controlled infection rates.

“Namely, we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now,” added Fauci. This comment caused some misunderstandings among Americans, which called for a clarification from Fauci.

“The United States and the entire world is still experiencing a pandemic, but there are different phases of the pandemic,” he explained. “And what we are in right now is somewhat of a transitional phase, out of the accelerated component into hopefully a more controlled component.”

Though the infection and transmission rates have decreased tremendously since two years ago, Americans should still continue to take precautions. “We’re not going to eradicate this virus,” Fauci said. Instead of trying to completely get rid of the virus, Fauci suggests that the nation continue regular booster vaccinations. 

The country must remain vigilant, and continue to develop effective vaccine strategies to keep the virus from becoming deadly. During the past week, the Omicron variant has started spreading more aggressively. The graph below displays the number of weekly Fairfax county COVID cases from late February to late April. By April 24th, the new Fairfax county cases had increased to more than 2000 new cases per week. Such numbers highlight the need for precautionary measures even during this transitionary period.