The Star Malaysia

‘US is knee-deep in first wave’

Country must immediatel­y tackle recent virus surge, says Fauci

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The United States is still “knee-deep” in its first wave of coronaviru­s infections and must act immediatel­y to tackle the recent surge, the country’s top infectious diseases expert said.

Anthony Fauci on Monday said the number of cases had never reached a satisfacto­ry baseline before the current resurgence, which officials have warned risks overwhelmi­ng hospitals in the country’s south and west.

“It’s a serious situation that we have to address immediatel­y,” Fauci said in a web interview with National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins.

But Fauci added he did not strictly consider the ongoing rise in cases a “wave”.

“It was a surge or a resurgence of infections superimpos­ed upon a baseline,” he said.

“If you look at the graphs from Europe, the European Union as an entity, it went up and then came down to the baseline.

“Now they’re having little blips, as you might expect, as they try to reopen. We went up, never came down to baseline, and now we’re surging back up,” he added.

The death toll from the virus in the US hit 130,000 on Monday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, and the number of infections is nearing three million.

A worrying number of new Covid-19 cases were reported amid a resurgence that has forced several states to suspend phased economic reopenings.

Fauci, who heads America’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is a leading member of President Donald Trump’s coronaviru­s task force and has become a trusted face in the administra­tion’s battle against the pandemic.

The US is the world’s hardest-hit nation from the virus and has been struggling to come to grips with a new normal of social distancing and mask-wearing.

Officials have warned that some of the country’s hospitals are in danger of being overwhelme­d by the influx of Covid-19 patients.

Hospital beds are full in parts of Texas, while calls for fresh stay-athome orders are growing.

Some mayors have said their cities reopened too early as Trump tries to downplay the severity of the crisis, prioritisi­ng economic reopening instead.

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