(Reuters) -Top U.S. infectious disease official Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Tuesday it is possible for COVID-19 to be reduced to an endemic illness from the current major health crisis next year if the country ramps up vaccination rates.

Booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines are vital for reaching that point, Fauci said in an interview during the Reuters Total Health conference, which runs virtually from Nov. 15-18. [here]

“To me if you want to get endemic, you have got to get the level of infection so low that it does not have an impact on society, on your life, on your economy,” Fauci said. “People will still get infected. People might still get hospitalized, but the level would be so low that we don’t think about it all the time and it doesn’t influence what we do.”

To get there, he said, would take a lot more people getting vaccinated and getting boosters.

If the United States makes boosters available for everyone, it is possible the country can get control of the virus by spring of 2022, Fauci added.

“Look what other countries are doing now about adopting a booster campaign virtually for everybody. I think if we do that, and we do it in earnest, I think by the spring we can have pretty good control of this,” Fauci said.

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