The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
THELATEST DEVELOPMENTS
Leading disease expert says immediate change is needed to save lives.
» Fauci says U. S. is poorly positioned for surge,
THE VIRUS INGA.
As of Sunday afternoon
361,982
CONFIRMED CASES
7,981
CONFIRMED DEATHS
1,404
CURRENT HOSPITALIZATIONS
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions the United States is “rounding the turn” on the coronavirus have increasingly alarmed the government’s top health experts, who say the country is heading into a long and potentially deadly winter with an unprepared government unwilling to make tough choices.
“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Anthony Fauci, thecountry’s leading infectious- disease expert, said in a wide- ranging interview late Friday. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
Fauci, a leading member of the government’s coronavirus response, said the United States needed tomake an “abrupt change” in public health practices and behaviors. He said the country could surpass 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day and predicted rising deaths in the coming weeks. He spoke as the nation set a new daily record Friday with more than 98,000 cases. As hospitalizations increase, deaths are also ticking up, with more than 1,000 reported Wednesday and Thursday, bringing the total to more than 229,000 since the start of the pandemic, according to health data analyzed by The Washington Post.
Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, offered blistering criticism of Fauci for his comments in a statement to The Washington Post on Saturday. Deere said Fauci “knows the risks ( from the coronavirus) today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago.”
“It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of theCorona virus Task Force and someonewho has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Deere said. ”
Deere added that president “always put thewell- being of the American people first,” citing his decision to cut off travel from China, his early shutdown of the country and his mobilization of the private sector to deliver critical supplies and develop treatments and vaccines.
Fauci’s blunt warnings come as Trump has rallied in states and cities experiencing record surges in infections and hospitalizations in a last- ditch effort to convince voters he has successfully managed the pandemic. He has held maskless rallies with thousands of supporters, often in violation of local health mandates.
Even as new infections climb in 42 states, Trump has downplayed the virus or mocked those who take it seriously. “COVID19, COVID, COVID, COVID,” he said during one event, lamenting that the news media gives it too much attention. In another rally, he baselessly said U. S. doctors record more deaths from COVID19 than other nations because they get more money.
“I mean our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘ I’m sorry, but everybody dies of COVID,’” Trump said Friday at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, without offering evidence.
Fauci said former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective.” Trump, Fauci said, is “looking at it from a different perspective” of “the economy and reopening the country.”