It’s too soon in the omicron variant’s course to know whether it signifies the beginning of the end of the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday.

Whether the highly transmissible yet purportedly milder strain of the novel coronavirus will dilute the more severe prevalent ones and take it over to become endemic is yet to be seen, Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist and the White House chief medical advisor, said.

“I would hope that that’s the case,” he told the World Economic Forum at a panel during its annual meeting, held virtually this year instead of in Davos. “But that would only be the case if we don’t get another variant that eludes the immune response of the prior variant.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci testifies before a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing to examine the federal response to COVID-19 and new emerging variants, in January on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Greg Nash/)

Moreover, milder symptoms don’t necessarily mean m