Fauci: Act responsibly over Labor Day
Model predicts surge if no actions are taken
HARTFORD, Conn. — Stir-crazy in some cases after the dreary summer of COVID-19, Americans headed into the Labor Day weekend amid warnings from public health officials not to make the same mistakes they did over Memorial Day and July Fourth.
The fear is that backyard parties, crowded bars and other gatherings will cause the coronavirus to come surging back
“I look upon the Labor Day weekend really as a critical point,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert. “Are we going to go in the right direction and continue the momentum downward, or are we going to have to step back a bit as we start another surge?”
The warnings came as a widely cited model by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the
University of Washington projected a worsening outbreak in the U.S. that will peak in early December at about 2,900 deaths per day, up from about 860 a day now, unless government officials take action.
Over the summer, the U.S. saw a rise in infections, deaths and hospitalizations, primarily in the South and West, that was blamed in part on Americans behaving heedlessly over Memorial Day and July Fourth.
The landscape has improved in recent weeks, with the numbers headed in the right direction in hard-hit states like Florida, Arizona and Texas, but there are certain risk factors that could combine with Labor Day: Children are going back to school, university campuses are seeing soaring case counts, college football is starting, more businesses are open and flu season is around the corner.
And a few states are heading into the holiday with less room in hospitals than they had over Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.
More beaches will be open on Labor Day than on Memorial Day, but Fauci said that is not cause in itself for concern, as long as people keep their distance.
“I would rather see someone on a beach, being physically separated enough, than someone crowded in an indoor bar,” he said.
Governors throughout the Northeast discouraged people from traveling out of state this weekend. Visitors from 33 states and territories must quarantine for 14 days after arriving in New Jersey, New York or Connecticut.
The outbreak is blamed for about 187,000 deaths and almost 6.2 million confirmed infections in the U.S., by far the highest totals in the world. The number of cases of COVID-19, which spiked from about 20,000 per day to around 70,000 during the summertime surge in the South, are now down to about 40,000.
Worldwide, the number of deaths has topped 870,000, with more than 26.4 million infections.
The IHME model Friday predicted that worsening outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere will lead to
1.9 million more COVID-19 deaths in the remaining months of 2020 unless governments take action.