Fauci returns after COVID battle to urge masks and boosters as cases surge

Dr. Anthony Fauci returned to lead the White House’s public messaging on COVID-19 this week after his own battle with the disease — urging Americans to again wear masks and get boosted amid the threat of waning immunity against surging new variants.

The administration’s 81-year-old chief medical adviser has been lying low since testing positive in mid-June.

Now recovered, the quadruple-vaccinated infectious disease expert gave a series of interviews Tuesday to warn of surging cases sparked by the latest Omicron variant, BA.5 — and caution Americans that even those recently recovered from an infection are likely still at risk.

“The threat to you is now,” Fauci warned during a White House briefing Tuesday.

“Immunity wanes, whether that’s immunity following infection or immunity following vaccine.

“If you were infected with BA.1, you really don’t have a lot of good protection against BA.4/5,” he warned of the latest two Omicron strains that account for more than 80% of circulating variants last week.