Fauci: Americans wearing masks in 2022 is "possible"

Americans wearing face masks in 2022 is "possible," NIAID director Anthony Fauci told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

Why it matters: Wearing masks will likely be part of our new normal for longer than we think, even as vaccinations ramp up across the U.S. The CDC advises that you should still wear a mask, avoid crowds and wash your hands often after receiving two doses of a coronavirus vaccine.

What he's saying: Even though long-term mask-wearing is a possibility, Fauci said he expects the U.S. to regain "a significant degree of normality" as we enter the fall and winter this year.

• Fauci told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that although the steep decline in cases and hospitalizations "is really terrific," the country's "baseline of daily infections is still very, very high. "
• "It's not the 300 to 400,000 that we had some time ago, but we want to get that baseline really, really, really low before we start thinking that we're out of the woods," he said.

Go deeper: America's vaccine rollout has been among the best in the world