An Interview With Dr. Anthony Fauci

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Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, described the current status of the pandemic in the United States as a “mixed bag” that is leaning more toward the positive than the negative.

But there is still work to do, he said, including dealing with complicated factors such as vaccination rates, contagious variants of the virus and waning immunity to infection.

In our conversation, Dr. Fauci weighed in on vaccine mandates, booster shots and the end of the pandemic.

“Ultimately, all pandemics burn themselves out,” he told us, adding: “So you have a choice. Do you want it to burn itself out and kill a lot more people and make a lot more people sick? Or do you want to do something about it to prevent further deaths and further illness?”

On today’s episode

• Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases.

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