Dr Fauci warns America must get coronavirus under control NOW or second wave will be worse than the first
DR Anthony Fauci has warned America must get the coronavirus under control or face a second wave that will be worse than the first.
The White House’s chief medial advisor was speaking as states around the country continue to see spikes in cases as lockdowns are lifted.
Yesterday saw the US as a whole record over 50,000 new cases, its biggest single-day spike since the start of the pandemic.
States across the South and West in particular – including some of the country’s most populous, like Florida and Texas – have seen cases rise again in recent weeks.
The surge has seen at least 19 states so far pause or roll back plans to lift their lockdowns.
Asked about the spike by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Dr Fauci said: “Obviously, it’s a serious situation.
“If you look at the different curves between the European Union, the UK, and others, how they’ve handled the outbreak, they’ve had big spikes and then they’ve brought it down almost… to baseline.
“The situation in the United States has been more problematic.
“We got hit very badly – worse than any country – with regard to the number of cases and the number of deaths.”
The US has so far seen 2.8million of coronavirus and almost 131,000 deaths, each figure accounting for one quarter of the global total.
States across the country began the process of lifting lockdowns before they had seen significant falls in their number of cases.
Many did so amid protests, supported by President Trump, opposing the measures on the grounds they were unconstitutional.
Fauci continued: “The problem we’re facing now is that, in an attempt to reopen the government and get it back to some form of normality, we’re seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states.
“What we’ve seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that are well beyond the worst spikes that they’ve seen.
“That is not good news. We’ve got to get that under control or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States.”
States including California have signalled that they may reimpose lockdowns if the spikes continue, while the governor of Florida, which has seen between 5,000-10,000 cases per day over the past week, has said that he won’t.
“We’re not going back, closing things,” Ron DeSantis told reporters.
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“I mean, people going to business is not what’s driving it.”
He went on to urge young people to limit their social interactions as well as their contact with the vulnerable.