New cases of COVID-19 are certain to arise when restrictions imposed to limit the spread of the virus are eased, said Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert for the US.
However, Fauci on Sunday said that the economy in parts of the country could have a “rolling re-entry” as early as next month, provided health authorities can quickly identify and isolate people who would inevitably be infected.
Fauci also said he “can’t guarantee” that it will be safe for Americans to vote in person in the US presidential elections on Nov. 3.
Photo: Bloomberg
When asked on CNN if earlier action on “social distancing” and “stay at home” policies could have saved lives, Fauci responded in part: “It’s very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated.”
US President Donald Trump, who has been chafing at criticism that he did not do enough early on to fight the coronavirus, later reposted a tweet that referenced Fauci’s comments and that said “Time to #FireFauci.”
The US president again pointed to his decision in late January to restrict travel from China, writing: “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up.”
The tweet was one of several that Trump posted on Sunday that defended his handling of the virus outbreak and blamed others for missteps.
Rather than flipping a switch to reopen the entire country, Fauci said a gradual process would be required based on the status of the pandemic in various parts of the US and the availability of rapid, widespread testing.
Once the number of people who are seriously ill sharply declines, officials can begin to “think about a gradual re-entry of some sort of normality, some rolling re-entry,” Fauci said.
In some places that might occur as soon as next month, he said.
“We are hoping that, at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down,” Fauci said.
Whenever restrictions ease, “we know that there will be people who will be getting infected. I mean, that is just reality,” he said.
Social distancing guidelines from Trump are set to expire on April 30.
Trump is eager to restart the US economy, which has stalled as most Americans are under orders to stay at home to help slow the virus’ spread.
However, governors would have a lot to say about when to ease restrictions in their states, and the governors of Maryland and New Jersey on Sunday said that they are not likely to do so until widespread testing is available.
“The question is how fast we can get enough tests up to speed in order to help us get to the point where we are able to do all of those things,” Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said.
He said he has set no “artificial deadline.”
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said the risks of reopening too soon are dangerously high.
“And I fear, if we open up too early, and we have not sufficiently made that health recovery and cracked the back of this virus, that we could be pouring gasoline on the fire, even inadvertently,” Murphy said.
Increased testing would allow authorities to identify, isolate and trace the contacts of people who are newly infected, Fauci said.
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
STICKING TO DEFENSE: Despite the screening of videos in which they appeared, one of the defendants said they had no memory of the event A court trying a Frenchman charged with drugging his wife and enlisting dozens of strangers to rape her screened videos of the abuse to the public on Friday, to challenge several codefendants who denied knowing she was unconscious during their actions. The judge in the southern city of Avignon had nine videos and several photographs of the abuse of Gisele Pelicot shown in the courtroom and an adjoining public chamber, involving seven of the 50 men accused alongside her husband. Present in the courtroom herself, Gisele Pelicot looked at her telephone during the hour and a half of screenings, while her ex-husband
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS