Fauci: America can be 'close' to normal by next Mother's Day — but there are 'conditions'

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, is moving the goal posts once again.

Fauci claimed Sunday that Americans can expect life to be "close" to normal by Mother's Day 2022, but admitted there are "conditions" on a return to normalcy.

What are the details?

During an interview on ABC's "This Week," host George Stephanopoulos asked Fauci what life in America will be like on Mother's Day next year.

"Well, George, I hope that next Mother's Day we're going to see a dramatic difference than what we're seeing right now," Fauci said. "I believe that we will be about as close to back to normal as we can."

However, Fauci stipulated there are "conditions to that."

"We've got to make sure that we get the overwhelming proportion of the population vaccinated," Fauci said. "When that happens, the virus doesn't really have any place to go. There aren't a lot of vulnerable people around. And where there are not a lot of vulnerable people around, you're not going to see a surge. You're not going to see the kinds of numbers we see now."

"That being the case, I think we can approach what we use to remember as normal before all of this tragedy happened," he added.

What did Fauci say before?

Last December, Fauci predicted Americans could expect normalcy by June. Then he said normality would return by fall. Fauci also said normalcy would return by the end of 2021.

Just last weekend, Fauci told CNN host Wolf Blitzer that America is in "the bottom of the sixth [inning]," meaning he believes America is only two-thirds of the way through the pandemic.

Anything else?

Shockingly, Fauci admitted Sunday that Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, was right when he said governments should immediately begin considering lifting mask mandates.

"Yes, we do need to start being more liberal as we get more people vaccinated," Fauci said. "As you get more people vaccinated, the number of cases per day will absolutely go down. We're averaging about 43,000 a day. We've got to get it much, much lower than that. When that gets lower, the risk of any infection indoor or outdoor diminishes dramatically."