(Reuters) - The Federal Reserve is “not anywhere close” to a decision on when to begin ratcheting back the U.S. central bank’s asset purchases, and any such decision will be well-telegraphed in advanced, Dallas Fed president Robert Kaplan said on Friday. Before reducing the pace of those purchases, Kaplan said, he would want to see “evidence that we’ve weathered the pandemic,” including a decline in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. He would also want to see a decline in unemployment and progress toward reaching the Fed’s 2% inflation goal, he told the Forecasters Club of New York in a virtual forum. But once those benchmarks are met, the economy would be a lot healthier “if you can wean off some of these extraordinary measures,” he said.