“We’re in a pattern now. If somebody says, ‘You’ll leave when we don’t have Covid anymore,’ then I will be 105. I think we’re going to be living with this,” Biden’s chief medical adviser said when asked whether he is staying in his role out of a sense of obligation…

Fauci says he’s prepared for the onslaught of attacks that could come in a Republican-controlled House or Senate next year — with many running in the midterms on campaigns deriding the lockdowns, school closures and masking requirements that Fauci said were necessary pandemic precautions — but insists that is not part of his calculus for retirement.

“They’re going to try and come after me, anyway. I mean, probably less so if I’m not in the job,” he admitted, sitting in his office on the sprawling National Institutes of Health campus in Bethesda, Md. “I don’t make that a consideration in my career decision.”

If called to testify, Fauci will stress the importance of vaccines and boosters, but acknowledge there may never be a definitive moment when the country can claim victory over an evolving virus that has killed more than one million Americans and left thousands with long Covid symptoms.