Dr. Anthony Fauci on Sunday appeared to back-track on retiring any time soon, saying he wants to wait for the US to be “really out” of the COVID-19 pandemic before he moves on.

The 81-year-old had started buzz about his potential retirement Saturday when he told ABC’s “Start Here” podcast, “I have said that I would stay in what I’m doing until we get out of the pandemic phase, and I think we might be there already.”

But in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, the White House chief medical adviser was asked about whether the country was nearing the end of the pandemic and if he planned to get “some rest” at that point.

“I’m not so sure, George,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases​ told anchor George Stephonaupolous. “I want to make sure we’re really out of this before I really seriously consider doing anything different. We’re still in this.

“We have a way to go. I think we got clearly going in the right direction. I hope we stay that way,” he continued.

Fauci has served as the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, working under six presidents starting with Ronald Reagan.