‘Needless death’
Early end to state lockdowns could be devastating: Fauci
WASHINGTON — Leading U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Tuesday warned Congress that a premature lifting of lockdowns could lead to additional outbreaks of the deadly coronavirus, which has killed 80,000 Americans and brought the economy to its knees.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a U.S. Senate panel that the virus epidemic is not yet under control in areas of the nation.
“I think we’re going in the right direction, but the right direction does not mean we have by any means total control of this outbreak,” Fauci said during the 3-1/2-hour hearing.
He urged states to follow health experts’ recommendations to wait for signs, including a declining number of new infections, before reopening.
President Donald Trump has been encouraging states to end a weeks-long shuttering of major components of their economies. But senators heard a sobering assessment from Fauci, when asked by Democrats about a premature opening of the economy.
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control and, in fact paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” Fauci said of premature steps.
The veteran doctor, who has worked under Republican and Democratic administrations and is a coronavirus adviser to the current White House, noted progress some in the fight against a virus that the medical world is still trying to understand.
He mentioned a slowing in the growth of cases in hotspots such as New York, even as other areas of the country were seeing spikes.
Some states already have begun reopening their economies and others have announced plans to phase that in beginning in mid-may, even as opinion polls show most Americans are concerned about resuming such operations too soon.
The hearing was more cordial than many of Congress’s undertakings have been in recent years, with members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee addressing the non-partisan health experts politely.
Democrats on the committee largely concentrated on the risks of opening the U.S. economy now, while Republicans downplayed that notion, saying a prolonged shutdown could have serious negative impacts on people’s health and the health of the economy.
Asked whether college students can feel safe if classes resume on campuses in late August or early September, Fauci said that expecting a treatment or vaccine to be in place by then would be “a bridge too far.”
Instead, schools and students would have to depend upon expanded testing for coronavirus, tracing of those who have been in contact with infected people and safe hygiene practices, witnesses said.