Next few weeks critical to down virus spikes: Fauci

Washington, June 24: The next few weeks are critical to tamping down a disturbing Covid-19 surge, Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress on Tuesday — while issuing a plea for people to avoid crowds and wear masks just hours before mask-shunning President Donald Trump was set to address a crowd of his young supporters in one hot spot.

Fauci and other top health officials also said they have not been asked to slow down virus testing, in contrast to Trump’s claim last weekend that he had ordered fewer tests be performed because they were uncovering too many infections.

Trump said earlier Tuesday that he wasn’t kidding when he made that remark. “We will be doing more testing,” Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, pledged to a House committee conducting oversight of the Trump administration’s

Slovakia’s President Zuzana Caputova has cancelled her meeting with her Austrian counterpart Alexander Van der Bellen to get quarantined after a member of her office met a person who tested positive for the Covid-19.

response to the pandemic.

The leading public health officials spent more than five hours testifying before the committee at a fraught moment, with Covid-19 cases rising in about half the states and political polarisation competing for attention with public health recommendations. Fauci told lawmakers he understands the pentup desire to get back to normal as the US begins emerging from months of stay-at-home orders and business shutdowns.