Dr Scott Gottlieb, former director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and current board member at Pfizer, says that the declining cases should be a signal to officials that it is time to start lifting some pandemic-related restrictions. '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 told CNBC's The Squawk Box. He compares the current U.S. situation to that of the UK. Across the pond, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has set plans to drop all pandemic restrictions amid a drop in cases. Gottlieb said that America should soon follow, and pointed out masks in schools and vaccine mandates as particularly 'divisive' restrictions that he thinks should go.