Life will probably never get back to exactly how it was before the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, society will “gradually” find its way to a new normal, according to Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading American immunologist who heads up the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

There have been more than 1.3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide. The virus has killed more than 74,000.

In the United States, there have been 380,698, including 11,902 deaths, according to the most recent figures.

“Well, Jon, if back to normal means acting like there never was a coronavirus problem, I don’t think that’s going to happen until we do have a situation where you can completely protect the population. But when we say getting back to normal, we mean something very different from what we are going through right now,” Dr Fauci said during an appearance on Fox News. “Because right now we are in a very intense mitigation. When we get back to normal, we will go back gradually to the point where we can function as a society.

“But you’re absolutely right. If you want to get to pre-coronavirus, that might not ever happen in the sense of the fact that the threat is there, but I believe with the therapies that will be coming online, with the fact that I feel confident that over a period of time we will get a good vaccine, that we will never have to get to back to where we are now,” he added. “So if that means getting back to normal, then we will get back to normal.”

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