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Tags: covid | 19 | pandemic | science | gottlieb | fauci

Former FDA Head Contradicts Fauci, Says COVID Pandemic Becoming Endemic

Dr. Scott Gottlieb
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, then commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, testifies before Congress on October 25, 2017 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images)

By    |   Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:20 PM EST

Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday that he is hopeful COVID-19 cases will continue to drop and the virus will enter an endemic state soon.

"I think the base case is that this signals the end of the pandemic phase of this virus," Gottlieb said to host Joe Kernen.

"The worrisome scenario is that you get something that's divergent evolution like omicron did. Something that's dramatically different than the variants that are circulating right now," he added.

"Most people think that's unlikely to happen, but most people felt that was unlikely to happen before and that delta would be the dominant lineage, and then omicron came along, it had been mutating in a sequestered pocket somewhere and re-emerged into the human circulation."

The recent comments from Gottlieb contradict Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Biden, who predicted earlier this week that there was potential for another mutated strain of the virus to emerge.

Fauci, who also serves as director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease (NIAID), said during The Davos Agenda virtual event on Monday that COVID-19 becoming endemic may not be as likely as many predict, according to CNBC.

"I would hope that that's the case. But that would only be the case if we don't get another variant that eludes the immune response of the prior variant," Fauci said.

"Control means you have it present, but it is present at a level that does not disrupt society,' he continued. "That's my definition of what endemicity would mean."

The U.S. recorded 721,651 new COVID-19 cases on Monday, a fall from the 1.364 million cases reported the same day last week, according to the Daily Mail.

America's new daily case average has also dropped 10 percent over the past seven days, from 766,939 to 684,457, per the Mail.

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Scott Gottlieb, the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Tuesday that he is hopeful COVID-19 cases will continue to drop and the virus will enter an endemic state soon.
covid, 19, pandemic, science, gottlieb, fauci
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2022-20-18
Tuesday, 18 January 2022 04:20 PM
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