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Covid-19 variants could prevent Americans from returning to “normal” in 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview.

“You can’t look at yourself in a vacuum, like ‘I’m vaccinated, and when can we get back to normal,'” Fauci said in the Tuesday interview with CNN’s Don Lemon. “If you want our society to get back to normal, you have to get about 70 to 85 percent of the population vaccinated. Because if you do that … the level of infection is going to go very, very low down in the community, and in society.”

Fauci did not address whether public opinion would pose a problem to his forecast. A poll released by the Kaiser Family Foundation in January indicated 13 percent of Americans said they “definitely” planned to avoid taking a Covid-19 vaccine. Another seven percent said they would take it only if it were required, while 31 percent said they would “wait and see” how it works. Just six percent said they had already been vaccinated.

However, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief quickly qualified his assessment and said that even with the vaccine, a full return to normal might not happen. “Maybe not 100 percent back to normal, but at least approaching normal,” Fauci said.

He also added the caveat that several variants of the virus could change his assessment. “Having said that,

Don, there is an absolute ‘But’ in that,” Fauci added. “The ‘But’ is that we have to address the variants. If the variants and the mutations come and start becoming dominant, then that’s going to obviate some of the effects of the vaccine. … 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.”

Watch above via CNN.

Tags: Anthony Fauci, CNN, Coronavirus, Covid-19, Don Lemon