Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Experts note risk of virus resurgence
Senators hear warning on reopening too soon
WASHINGTON — Two of the federal government’s top health officials on Tuesday painted a grim picture of the months ahead, warning a Senate panel that the coronavirus pandemic was far from contained.
The officials — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, and Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — predicted dire consequences if the nation reopened its economy too soon, noting that the United States still lacked critical testing capacity and the ability to trace the contacts of those who are infected.
“If we do not respond in an adequate way when the fall comes, given that it is without a doubt that there will be infections that will be in the community, then we run the risk of having a resurgence,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is at the forefront of efforts to find a coronavirus vaccine.
If states reopen their economies too soon, he warned, “there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” which could result not only in “some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery.”
“I have been very clear in my message — to try to the best extent possible to go by the guidelines, which have been very well thought out and very well delineated,” Fauci said.
Fauci’s remarks, along with Redfield’s, were made during a high-profile — and
partly virtual — hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Fauci and Redfield have been barred by the White House from appearing before the Democratic-controlled House.
Also on Tuesday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro — who repeatedly warned colleagues about the coronavirus in a series of memos early this year — declined to testify before a House panel Thursday about a whistleblower’s complaint that mentions him at length.
Navarro, the latest figure to draw the interest of lawmakers probing the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis, had been invited to appear before the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s panel on health.
Meanwhile, an Associated Press analysis shows thousands of people are getting sick from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, while they’re on the job.
Recent figures show a surge of infections in meatpacking and poultry-processing plants. There’s also been a spike of new cases among construction workers in Austin, Texas, where that sector recently returned to work.
“The people who are getting sick right now are generally people who are working,” Dr. Mark Escott, a regional health official, told Austin’s City Council. “That risk is going to increase the more people are working.”
In the federal prison system, the number of confirmed cases has increased steadily. As of May 5, there were 2,066 inmates who had tested positive, up from 730 on April 25.
PROTECTING CHILDREN
Fauci told senators that humility in the face of an unpredictable killer meant erring on the side of caution, even with children, who have fared well but have recently shown new vulnerabilities.
“For example, right now, children presenting with covid-19 actually have a very strange inflammatory syndrome very similar to Kawasaki syndrome,” Fauci said. “I think we better be very careful that we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that New York is now investigating about 100 cases of the mysterious inflammatory syndrome, which affects blood vessels and organs. Three children in the state have died, and Cuomo advised all hospitals to prioritize covid-19 testing for children presenting with symptoms.
In New York City, which has reported at least 52 children sick with the syndrome, Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday urged parents to call their pediatricians promptly if their children show symptoms including persistent fever, rash, abdominal pain and nausea.
Children elsewhere in the U.S. and in Europe have also been hospitalized with the condition known as pediatric multi-system inflammatory syndrome.
Redfield pleaded with senators to build up the nation’s public health infrastructure, even as he acknowledged that the CDC had not filled 30 jobs authorized by Congress last year to expand its capacity to track outbreaks, and had yet to put in place a “comprehensive surveillance” system to monitor outbreaks in nursing homes, which have been hard hit by the pandemic.
“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said, “but we are more prepared.”
The two were among four government doctors — the others were Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, and Adm. Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary for health — who testified remotely during the hearing.
BACK TO SCHOOL
Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who like Fauci, Redfield and Hahn is in quarantine after being exposed to a person who tested positive for the coronavirus, presided as the committee’s chairman from his home in Maryville, Tenn.
He began the questioning by asking Fauci whether college and school administrators could feel safe welcoming students back to campus in the fall, and the likelihood of a treatment or vaccine becoming available by then.
“The idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate reentry of students into the fall term would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far,” Fauci said. “The drug that has shown some degree of efficacy was modest and was in hospitalized patients.”
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., pressed his belief that children needed to return to school and told Fauci that his voice was not the only one senators would listen to.
“I think we ought to have a little bit of humility in our belief that we know what’s best for the economy,” Paul said. “And as much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all. I don’t think you’re the one person who gets to make a decision.”
Fauci said that whether students will feel safe returning to school will also largely depend on testing capabilities.
Giroir said he expects the country to have the capacity to conduct 25 million to 30 million tests a month by the fall, which could allow schools to have a surveillance strategy in place to quickly identify and isolate confirmed covid-19 cases.
The doctors’ assessments came as the death toll in the United States surpassed 82,000.
Fauci agreed with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who said many experts have said that the death toll is higher than what’s been reported.
Fauci pointed to New York City, where he said the health care system faced an extraordinary challenge during the peak of the outbreak, adding that people could have died at home of the coronavirus without being officially counted.
Fauci said the virus will not disappear in the fall or winter. President Donald Trump has claimed that the virus would go away even without a vaccine, though he noted that there could be “flare-ups,” including in the fall.
“I feel about vaccines like I feel about tests: This is going to go away without a vaccine,” Trump said Friday.
“That is just not going to happen,” Fauci said of the idea that the virus would disappear on its own. “It’s a highly transmissible virus. It is likely there will be virus somewhere on this planet that will likely get back to us.”
The hearing, titled “COVID-19: Safely Getting Back to Work and Back to School,” offered little concrete advice on how that would happen. It was the first chance lawmakers have had to publicly question the officials since Trump declared a national emergency two months ago.
LONG-TERM VIEW
Despite the gloomy predictions for the months ahead, the experts drew a somewhat more upbeat picture over the long term.
Asked by Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, if the scientists would ultimately develop a vaccine, Fauci said: “It’s definitely not a long shot, Sen. Romney. I would think that it’s more likely than not that we will.”
And Giroir assured Sanders that his office was determined to see to it that a vaccine “reaches all segments of society regardless of their ability to pay.”
Some Republicans sounded their own upbeat note. Alexander proclaimed testing in the United States “impressive” and “enough to begin going back to work.” Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., agreed, saying in an interview, “I have great optimism that we won’t backslide.”
But the sentiment was not universal. Romney drew an unfavorable comparison between South Korea, which conducted 140,000 tests by March 6 and has had 258 deaths from covid-19, and the United States, which had conducted about 2,000 tests by March 6.
“I find our testing record is nothing to celebrate,” Romney said.
The White House has put out guidelines for states to follow, called “Opening Up America Again,” in planning how to reopen businesses and get people back to work and school. The plan recommends, among other things, that before reopening, states should have a “downward trajectory of positive tests” or a “downward trajectory of documented cases” of the coronavirus over two weeks, while conducting robust contact tracing and “sentinel surveillance” testing of asymptomatic people in vulnerable populations, like nursing homes.
But the guidelines are not mandatory, and many states are reopening without adhering to them, seeking to ease the pain as millions of working people and small-business owners are facing economic ruin while sheltering at home.
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., complained Tuesday that Fauci and the other witnesses were “trying to have it both ways” by saying that states should not reopen too early while giving governors guidance that was “criminally vague.” The CDC has been working on a more specific plan that has been held up by the White House. Murphy demanded to know when it would be released — especially given that states were reopening.
“Is it this week? Is it next week?” the senator asked. Redfield replied that the guidance would be on the CDC’s website “soon,” after being reviewed by Trump’s coronavirus task force.
“Soon isn’t terribly helpful,” Murphy shot back.
RELATIONSHIP WITH TRUMP
Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., the last senator in line to ask questions, sought assurances from all four witnesses that they don’t have a confrontational relationship with Trump — a notion that she said has been advanced by the news media and some of her colleagues.
“There is certainly not a confrontational relationship between me and the president,” Fauci said. “I give advice, opinion based on evidence-based scientific information. He hears that. He respects it. He gets opinions from a variety of other people, but in no way, in my experience over the last several months, has there been any confrontational relationship between us.”
Redfield, Hahn and Giroir all gave similar answers.
“We have a very productive working relationship with each other,” Giroir said.
Information for this article was contributed by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times; by David Crary, Andrew Milligan, Rick Callahan, Claudia Lauer, Deepti Hajela, Mike Stobbe, Michael Balsamo, Mary Esch and Jake Seiner of The Associated Press; and by Robert Costa and Yasmeen Abutaleb of The Washington Post.