Trending

Coronavirus: US ‘not in a good place,’ Fauci says

As Americans approach the colder months of fall and winter, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that the U.S. is still “not in a good place” for containment of the novel coronavirus.

During last week’s CITIZEN by CNN Conference, Fauci said that as the cooler months begin to push people indoors, Americans should focus on lowering the baseline of about 40,000 new coronavirus cases reported each day.

“You don’t want to be in a position like that as the weather starts getting cold, so we really need to intensify the public health measures that we talk about all the time,” he said Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

“As we get into the fall and the winter, you really want to level of community spread to be as low as you possibly get it.”

Several states, including Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Arkansas, are seeing coronavirus cases rising at a level that indicates “unchecked community spread” while only one state, Vermont, appeared to be “close to containment,” NPR reported Monday. Still, data compiled by the public radio network showed that several states, including Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Ohio, have recently begun to see improved COVID-19 case numbers.

“There’s certainly parts of the country that are doing well. But ... there are states that are starting to show (upticks) in cases and even some increases in hospitalizations in some states,” Fauci said on “Good Morning America.”

“And, I hope not but, we very well might start seeing increases in deaths.”

He called Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision last week to lift all COVID-19 business restrictions “very concerning.”

“Now’s the time, actually, to double down a bit,” Fauci said. “And I don’t mean close. … We’re not talking about shutting anything down. We’re talking about common sense type of public health measures that we’ve been talking about all along.”

The United States leads the world with the most coronavirus cases and the highest death toll. Since the start of the pandemic, officials have confirmed more than 7.1 million infections and reported more than 204,000 deaths nationwide, according to numbers compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

More than 33.2 million COVID-19 cases have been reported worldwide and nearly 1 million people have died of the viral infection, according to Johns Hopkins.