Dr. Fauci Says It Might Be Time to Start Loosening Indoor Mask Mandates

Dr. Anthony Fauci addressed questions of relaxing indoor covid restrictions and what the U.S. will look like a year from now on ABC’s This Week.

Fauci gave an interview to George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, part of which they used to talk about how to overcome vaccine hesitancy around the country. At one point, Stephanopoulos referred to the fact that former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has been saying multiple times lately that America has reached the point where indoor restrictions and mask mandates should be relaxed.

To this end, Stephanopoulos asked Fauci whether relaxing restrictions would be a good way to demonstrate the benefits of getting inoculated.

The ABC News anchor noted that Gottlieb “says it’s time to start relaxing indoor mask mandates. Is he right?”

“I think so,” Fauci replied, “and I think you’re going to probably be seeing that as we go along and as more people get vaccinated. The CDC will be, you know, almost in real time, updating their recommendations and their guidelines. But, yes, we do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated.”

Fauci remained cautious though as he added the U.S. is “averaging about 43,000 [Covid cases] a day,” even though that figure “will absolutely go down” with more vaccinations.

“We’ve got to get it much, much lower than that,” he said. “When that gets lower, the risk of any infection indoor or outdoor diminishes dramatically.”

As Fauci went on by saying there have been “no red flags” for pregnant women getting vaccinated, Stephanopoulos concluded by asking him for “what the country is going to look like next Mother’s Day.”

Fauci’s answer:

I hope that next Mother’s Day, we’re going to see a dramatic difference than what we’re seeing right now. I believe that we will be about as close to back to normal as we can. And there’s some conditions to that, George. We’ve got to make sure that we get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated. When that happens, the virus doesn’t really have any place to go. There aren’t a lot of vulnerable people around. And where there are not a lot of vulnerable people around, you’re not going to see a surge. You’re not going to see the kinds of numbers we see now.

Watch above, via ABC.