WASHINGTON D.C.: Dr. Anthony Fauci said it is now up to Americans to make their own medical risk assessments, appearing to have abandoned his previous stance for more government restrictions over COVID-19.

During an interview, he told ABC News,”This is not going to be eradicated, and it is not going to be eliminated. And what is going to happen is that we are going to see that each individual is going to have to make their calculation of the amount of risk that they want to take.”

Americans will have to consider factors, such as their age, vaccination status and whether they live with vulnerable individuals when it comes to coronavirus precautions, Fauci added.

“We are at that point where in many respects we are going to have to live with some degree of virus in the community. The best way to mitigate that is to get vaccinated,” he said.

Fauci’s comments came amidst the spread of the now-dominant BA.2 COVID-19 variant, which is highly contagious but less severe than previous strains.

Fauci said that while “there is concern that we are seeing an uptick in cases,” it is “not unexpected that you’re going to see an uptick when you pull back on the mitigation methods.

“It was said that if we do start seeing an uptick, particularly of hospitalizations, we may need to revert back to being more careful and having more utilizations of masks indoors. But right now, we are watching it very, very carefully, and there is concern that it is going up, but hopefully we are not going to see increased severity,” he added.