A top pharmaceutical executive is saying that pandemic-related restrictions could be relaxed as COVID-19 cases decline in some areas following a surge of the milder Omicron variant.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current board member at Pfizer, says ending the mandates will ease what he calls “a lot of acrimony.”

“I think certainly on the East Coast, where you see cases declining dramatically, we need to be willing to lean in and do that very soon I think as conditions improve we have to be willing to relax some of these measures with the same speed that we put them in place,” he said on CNBC.