Fauci: Reopenings may have moved too fast
Also cites reckless individuals
WASHINGTON – The recent surge in coronavirus infections was caused by some areas reopening too quickly and by people not following guidelines, Dr. Anthony Fauci told lawmakers Tuesday.
“We’ve got to get that message out that we are all in this together,” Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “And if we are going to contain this, we’ve got to contain it together.”
Testifying months after he’d previously warned of needless “suffering and death” if appropriate steps weren’t taken, Fauci, the top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health, said he’s “quite concerned” about what’s happening in many states.
Asked what’s going wrong, he said several states may have gone “too quickly” and skipped over some of the checkpoints laid out for a safe reopening.
But even in areas where state and local officials followed the federal guidelines, individuals acted as if all restrictions had been lifted.
“What we saw were a lot of people who maybe felt that because they think they are invulnerable, and we know many young people are not because they’re getting serious disease, that therefore their getting infected has nothing at all to do with anyone else, when in fact it does,” Fauci said.
New cases have been increasing by about 40,000 a day, he said, adding that it could rise to 100,000 a day without changes.
“We’ve really got to do something about that, and we need to deal with it quickly,” Fauci said.
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., opened the hearing on the state of the coronavirus pandemic by re-upping his past recommendation that President Donald Trump wear a mask to reduce the political divide on that health recommendation.
“The president has plenty of admirers,” Alexander said. “They would follow his lead.”
Health officials have emphasized the need for mask wearing as states loosen their social distancing restrictions and as infections have surged in many areas.
Fauci and the other witnesses entered the hearing room wearing masks. They were spaced 6 feet apart. The number of reporters let into the room was limited, and there was no room for a general audience.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, tore into Trump in her comments.
“We’ve seen a leadership crisis raging in the White House as the president proves time after time he cares less about how this pandemic is impacting families and communities and more about how it makes him look,” Murray said.
The hearing was held two days after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warned that the “window is closing” for the U.S. to get the situation under control.
Fauci has repeatedly urged states to follow federal guidelines for reopening, including in his last appearance before the Senate health committee when he warned in May that failure to do so would lead to “some suffering and death” that could be avoided.
Today, half the country is struggling to manage rising COVID-19 cases.
A number of states paused their reopening plans last week as the U.S. set records for the number of new cases in one day. Texas closed bars and limited restaurant capacity, while Florida banned drinking at bars.
Experts say states that don’t manage their case counts risk overwhelming the health care system again and infecting neighboring states that have already flattened the curve.
The White House has often presented a rosier picture of the situation than what health officials describe.
Asked Monday about Azar’s warning, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the president is encouraged there’s been a decline in fatality rates and an increase in effective treatments.
“These things make us uniquely equipped to handle the increase in cases that we’ve seen,” McEnany said.
The more than 125,000 deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 represent approximately 25% of the world’s fatalities.
Some experts predict the U.S. death toll to hit nearly 180,000 by Oct. 1.
Testifying before a House panel last week, Fauci said these two weeks are “critical” in how the country addresses the surge in states like Florida, Texas and Arizona.
He attributed the “disturbing surge of infections” to a combination of factors, including an increase in person-to-person transmission, or community spread.