Fauci Says US Could Return to ‘Real Degree of Normality’ By November Election

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci listens during the daily coronavirus briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington on April 9, 2020. Alex Wong/Getty Images

The United States’ top infectious disease expert said on April 10 that by November, the United States could return to a “degree of normality.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease, made the comment last week when he was asked by MSNBC host Brian Williams whether he believes voters in all 50 U.S. states should be able to vote by mail in the November elections, due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic.

“I would hope that by November we would have things under such control that we could have a real degree of normality. That’s my interest and my job as a public health person,” Fauci said, adding that it is not his area of expertise.

Fauci meanwhile told CNN’s “State of the Union” he “can’t guarantee” that it will be safe for Americans to vote in person on Election Day, Nov. 3.

His comments come as Democrats and Republicans clash over the possibility of expanding mail-in voting.

President Donald Trump has publicly criticized voting by mail, saying it paves the way for potential voter fraud.

“Republicans should fight very hard when it comes to statewide mail-in voting. Democrats are clamoring for it,” Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday.“Tremendous potential for voter fraud, and for whatever reason, doesn’t work out well for Republicans.”

“Absentee Ballots are a great way to vote for the many senior citizens, military, and others who can’t get to the polls on Election Day,” he added. “These ballots are very different from 100% Mail-In Voting, which is ‘RIPE for FRAUD,’ and shouldn’t be allowed!”

County Clerk Brenda Jaszewski holds a box of absentee ballots from the town of Erin, Wis., as Board of Canvass member Marilyn Merten reaches to take a ballot out during a statewide presidential election recount in West Bend, Wis., on Dec. 1, 2016. John Ehlke/West Bend Daily News via AP

Democrats, meanwhile, have cited concerns about the risk to public health that would come with in-person voting.

“We have a different value system about what voting means to a democracy,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Thursday. “Clearly, we want to remove all obstacles to participation.”

The outbreak of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, a type of coronavirus that causes the disease COVID-19, in the United States has led to the rescheduling of primaries in at least a dozen states across the nation, including New York and New Jersey.

In the United States, there are more than 580,000 cases, over 23,000 deaths, and almost 44,000 recoveries as of Monday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Approximately 3 million people across the country have been tested.

In hard-hit New York, the number of patients in the state’s hospitals due to COVID-19 increased by just 53 people on April 11, the lowest total since March 16, the first day on which the state calculated a tally and reported an increase of 94 patients. The three-day moving average of new hospitalizations in the state has dropped for eight of the past nine days.

For most people, the CCP virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.

Fauci told CNN he hopes Americans will be able to vote in-person in November.

“I believe that if we have a good, measured way of rolling into this, steps towards normality, that we hope, by the time we get to November, that we will be able to do it in a way which is the standard way,” he said.

“However—and I don’t want to be the pessimistic person—there is always the possibility, as we get into next fall, and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound.”

Ivan Pentchoukov and The Associated Press contributed to this report.