One of the problems we face in United States is that unfortunately, there is a combination of an anti-science bias that people are -- for reasons that sometimes are, you know, inconceivable and not understandable -- they just don't believe science and they don't believe authority, so when they see someone up in the White House, which has an air of authority to White House, who's talking about science, that there are some people who just don't believe that -- and that's unfortunate because, you know, science is truth.

Anthony Fauci

The underlying reason for the CDC doing this was just based on the evolution of the science.

So even though there are breakthroughinfections with vaccinated people almost always the people are asymptomatic and the level of virus is so low it makes it extremely unlikely — not impossible — but very, very low likelihood that they're going to transmit it.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with an individual who has a certain level of risk aversion, as we know the risk is extremely low of getting infected whether you're indoors or outdoors, but there are those people who don't want to take that bit of a risk, and there's nothing wrong with that, and they shouldn't be criticized.

Being able to go around without a mask, indoors as well as outdoors, is really a big step in that direction, i wouldn't want to declare victory prematurely, but I'm saying this is clearly a step in the direction that we want to go.

There are going to be institutions, clearly, that are going to be saying -- and that could be airlines, we know certain colleges are also saying -- if you're not vaccinated, you're not going to come on campus to classes in real time, and there are going to be some institutions that might be saying the same thing.

I think there's going to be a pushback against questioning somebody when they walk in, because you can never validate or prove that they're telling you the truth.

You've got to shut down. I believe several of the Indian states have already done that, but you need to break the chain of transmission, and one of the ways to do that is to shut down.

However, even before you get to that, as you get more and more people vaccinated, you will reach a point... where you'll start to see the number of cases going down dramatically.

You may see blips but if we handle them well, it is unlikely that you'll see the kind of surge that we saw in the late fall and the early winter.

That's the reason why vaccinations are so important.

We do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated.

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.

They really got to get hospital beds and do really what the Chinese did way back a year or so ago, where you essentially build up with –the equivalent of field hospitals. You’ve got to get that, you can’t have people out in the street not having a hospital bed.

But the end game of this all, George, is going to be to get people vaccinated, india is the largest vaccine producing country in the world, they’ve got to get their resources not only from within but also from without and that’s the reason why other countries need to chip in to be able to get either supplies to the Indians to make their own vaccines or to get vaccines donated.

We've been saying, and the CDC has been saying all along, that it isvery likely that we're undercounting.

I want to find out how could it possibly be that the same virus that's killed 570,000 people in this country is a virus in which more than half the people don't ever get any symptoms.

I think it’s going to be very soon, I mean I don’t want to get ahead of the FDA but I believe it’s going to be within several days, I cannot imagine it’s going to be much longer than that.

You have the capability of protecting yourself as a young person, 12 to 15, but also knowing that you're not going to pass it on to someone else, you even want to call upon the young people to say,' I want to protect Anthony Fauci, but I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

I think we're going to be able to do it, i think it's by changing a little bit of the strategy -- getting out of the mass vaccination approach, and really putting in walk-in capabilities in 40,000 or so pharmacies throughout the country, getting mobile units going, getting the local capability of accessibility rather than these broad, mass vaccination sites.

It's not going to be like a light switch on and off - we go from where we are right now to completely normal. It's going to be a gradual, little by little you'll be seeing that approach to normal.