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Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert on the White House coronavirus task force, said Sunday it is likely that the virus will become a seasonal illness.

“Unless we get this globally under control there is a very good chance that it’ll assume a seasonal nature,” Fauci told CBS’s “Face The Nation.”

Fauci said that even if the world is able to largely contain COVID-19 soon, there still needs to be preparation for a resurgence.

“We need to be prepared that since it will be unlikely to be completely eradicated from the planet that as we get into next season we may see the beginning of a resurgence,” he said.

Fauci said the federal government is working on preparedness measures, such as developing a vaccine and doing clinical trials for drug therapies.

“Hopefully, if in fact we do see that resurgence, we will have interventions that we did not have in the beginning of the situation that we’re in right now,” he said.

The US has already seen more than 324,000 cases of coronavirus, leading to at least 9,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.