Americans may still have to wear masks in 2022, the country’s leading infectious disease expert said Sunday, though he said life could resume a semblance of normalcy by the fall or winter.

“It is possible that that’s the case,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday on CNN when asked whether mask use will still be necessary next year.

“We’re going to have a significant degree of normality beyond the terrible burden that all of us have been through over the last year,” he added.” As we get into the fall and winter — by the end of the year … we will be approaching a degree of normality.”

The comments came as COVID-19 infections and deaths were decreasing in New York and the rest of the country as a whole, though concern remained high about new variants of the virus.

Fauci said a return to normalcy depends on “the level of dynamics of virus that’s in the community.”

“If you combine getting most of the people in the country vaccinated with getting the level of virus in the community very, very low, then I believe you’re going to be able to say for the most part, we don’t necessarily have to wear masks,” the doc stated.

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