US top infectious disease specialist Dr Anthony Fauci on Thursday said that even though COVID-19 vaccine is expected in the next few months, life is likely to get back to normal in the world by the end of next year.
"If we get a vaccination campaign, and by the second or third quarter of 2021 we have vaccinated a substantial proportion of the people, I think it will be easier by the end of 2021, and perhaps even into the next year, before we start having some semblances of normality," Fauci was quoted as saying by CNN during a University of Melbourne panel discussion.
Talking about the ongoing situation in the US ahead of the presidential polls, Fauci said that wearing a mask in the US has become a political statement, adding that the politicization of masks should stop.
"Masks in the United States have almost become a political statement, and I know that was carried in the news globally, it was really ... very, very difficult. In fact, people were ridiculed for their mask, depending upon which side of a particular political spectrum you were at," Fauci said.
"I was very much involved with Dr Deborah Birx and putting together these guidelines, which were a gateway of Phase 1, Phase 2 - to tell you how you can gradually safely and prudently open up the country," Fauci said. "If everybody had done that uniformly, I don't think we would be in the position we're in right now."
According to Johns Hopkins University, the United States continues worst affected by the pandemic with 8,937,926 cases and 228,625 deaths. Meanwhile, there over 44,871,314 cases and 1,178,751 deaths globally.
