Fauci issues dire warning as virus surges
Expert warns cases could soon reach 100,000 per day; states and cities slow reopenings
Staggered by the resurgent novel coronavirus, cities and states are reinstituting restrictions on bars, pools and large gatherings days ahead of July 4 celebrations as the top U.S. infectious-disease expert warned Tuesday that the pandemic is out of control in some places and soon could reach 100,000 cases a day.
Nationally, new infections have topped 40,000 in four of the past five days during an accelerating outbreak that exceeds the worst days of April.
The number of people hospitalized with COVID-19, the disease the virus causes, is surging in seven states, according to data tracked by the
Washington Post. In Texas, Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, West Virginia, Georgia and California, seven-day averages are up at least 25 percent from last week.
“I’m not satisfied with what’s going on because we’re going in the wrong direction,” Anthony Fauci said during a Senate hearing Tuesday.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he would not be surprised to see the number of new infections more than double, from over 40,000 a day now to 100,000 a day. “We’ve really got to do something about that, and we need to do it quickly,” Fauci said under questioning from Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. “Clearly, we are not in total control right now.”
Fauci said half of all new cases are being recorded in just four states. Three of them — Arizona, Texas and Florida — are led by Republican governors who moved quickly, after being urged by President Donald Trump, to reopen their economies but have since begun closing bars and beaches.
In Florida, where cases have spiked, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who last week ordered people in the city to wear masks in public amid a spike in cases, said a statewide policy should be a “no-brainer.” The mayor of Miami Beach also issued a penalty-bearing rule that requires that city’s residents to wear masks.
In the fourth state with a big increase in coronavirus cases, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has taken a more cautious approach, imposing the country’s first statewide
stay-at-home order March 19.
But now, nearly 3 in 4 Californians live in counties that have been ordered to reverse their economic reopening, have been recommended to do so or face additional state regulations unless infections flatten out.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told the House Financial Services Committee the economy may be showing signs of progress. But he said “while this bounce-back in economic activity is welcome, it also presents new challenges — notably, the need to keep the virus in check.”
He said the path ahead for the U.S. economy remains “extraordinarily uncertain” and that the recovery will largely depend on containing the pandemic and reassuring Americans it is safe to resume their former lives.
Over 10.4 million coronavirus cases have been detected worldwide, with roughly 2.6 million infections reported in the United States.
Almost 125,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States, and the global death count is hovering near 510,000.
The United States is leading the world in officially confirmed infections and fatalities as it continues to see surges in new cases, hospitalizations and deaths in many states.
Of all the states to reverse course, the rollbacks in Arizona were perhaps most notable, given the state’s battleground status in the November presidential election and its role as one of the first states to lift many restrictions in May.
Arizona’s Republican governor reversed course Monday and ordered bars, gyms, nightclubs, movie theaters and water parks to close for at least 30 days, banned gatherings of more than 50 people and told school districts to hold off on resuming classes.
A little over a month after allowing stay-at-home orders to expire, Gov. Doug Ducey on Monday warned residents that “we can’t be under any illusion that this virus is going to go away on its own.”
Arizona hit a high for hospitalizations Tuesday, at 2,793, and its rolling seven-day average increased by 35 percent.
Public health experts said while Ducey’s moves made sense, given that the state is inching closer to running out of intensive care beds, some said they wished he had gone further and instituted a statewide mask-wearing mandate.
“These are effective things to do; they’re going to take some time to show an impact,” said Will Humble, the executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association.
Ducey had opted for an all-in approach to reopening that allowed indoor restaurant and bar patronage right away May 15, rather than choosing a phased approach like other states. He also supported a Trump rally at a megachurch in Phoenix on June 23, when the president spoke to hundreds of supporters who did not don masks or practice social distancing.
Vice President Mike Pence plans to visit Arizona on Wednesday to meet with Ducey and state health officials. He canceled planned political events with supporters in Arizona and Florida because of the surge in cases.
Delaware Gov. John Carney, a Democrat, said Tuesday that bars at state beaches will close July 3, ahead of the holiday weekend, and remain so indefinitely after a surge of cases in some of those beach towns. In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, closed bars and nightclubs again as cases in the state spike, the Denver Post reported.