Fauci says he can't wait to have a burger and a beer in a bar instead of cooking at home

• Dr. Anthony Fauci told LA's 94.7 The Wave the first thing he'll do when the pandemic is over enjoy a classic American meal out.
• "What I used to like a lot, was rather than go home and cook, on the way home stop at a favorite small restaurant or a bar and sit there and have a beer and a hamburger and just relax," he said.
• Indoor drinking and dining may not resume until fall 2021, but it depends on how many people get vaccinated.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: He's just like us. The nation's top infectious disease expert isn't necessarily itching to book a luxurious overseas vacation or enjoy front-row seats at packed sports arena.

He just wants to go to a local joint for a burger and a beer, he told radio host Maggie McKay of 94.7 The Wave in Los Angeles when she asked about the first thing he'd do when the pandemic is over.

"My wife works here at the NIH with me, and we almost every night go home together, and it's usually pretty late. I think we're both kind of in the category of workaholics," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"And what I used to like a lot, was rather than go home and cook, on the way home stop at a favorite small restaurant or a bar and sit there and have a beer and a hamburger and just relax."

Fauci said he and his wife, Christine Grady, a nurse and bioethicist, haven't eaten out at a sit-down restaurant since February. "Everything we've done is take out," he said. "I'd like to get back to that kind of normality, just to sort of reconnect with the way things were when they were normal."

Fauci will have earned the grub. He also told McKay he's kept up exercising, despite consistently working 17- to 18-hour days without his pre-coronavirus break to run around the park near the NIH campus.

"When I go home in the evening, I make it a point, with my wife, to kind of power walk around the neighborhood," he said. "It's dark, it isn't as pleasant as doing it with the sun shining on your face, but that exercise is absolutely essential to kind of defusing myself form the tension of the day."

Indoor drinking and dining might not come until fall

Fauci's comments came just a day after the first coronavirus vaccine began being injected in Americans, and days before the second vaccine is expected to be authorized for emergency use.

Officials have called the vaccine rollout the beginning of the end of the pandemic, but that doesn't mean the end is close. The US has been averaging more than 200,000 new infections and 2,400 deaths per day over the past week.

Until about 80% of the population is vaccinated, Fauci and other experts have said restrictions will remain.

"By the time we get into mid-fall of 2021, we can be approaching, some level of normality," Fauci told CNBC's Meg Tirrell during a livestream Wednesday. "I would think that would be things like being able to go to theaters, clearly feeling much more comfortable about school, having restaurants open to indoor dining."

"But again," he added, "it's going to depend on what proportion of the population gets vaccinated."

• Read more:
• What you can and can't do after getting the coronavirus vaccine
• Dr. Fauci said his daughter's boyfriend's brother died from COVID-19 at age 32
• Dr. Fauci's 80th birthday is on Christmas Eve, and he's celebrating it with a Zoom party
• Fauci said his daughters refuse to visit for Thanksgiving, telling him: 'You're a young, vigorous guy, but you're 79 years old'