“Right now we’re at a low enough level that I believe that we’re transitioning into endemicity,” he told the Post.

Fauci has had to move targets on transitioning out of the pandemic before. While he initially said he expected the US to move to the “control” phase by last fall, a spike in cases driven by the delta variant, and then omicron, threw a wrench into that initial prediction.

US covid funding up in the air

Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden is still pushing Congress for more covid-19 funding after a bipartisan deal stalled on Capitol Hill. Senators Chuck Schumer and Mitt Romney announced a new bill this month that would provide $10 billion in covid funding, with $5 billion going to therapeutics and the rest going toward vaccinations, booster shots, and testing.

But the most recent Senate package dropped nearly all funding intended to stop the coronavirus from spreading overseas, and vaccination rates in the poorest parts of the world remain much lower than in wealthy nations. Fewer than 17% of Africans, for example, have been vaccinated for covid-19.

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