Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House coronavirus task force, sees “glimmers” of evidence that social distancing efforts put in place by President Trump are beginning to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
But Fauci said on CNN on Tuesday that Americans are still “in a very difficult situation.”
“We hope and I believe it will happen that we may start seeing a turnaround, but we haven’t seen it yet. We’re just pushing on the mitigation. “You don’t want to get overconfident. You just want to keep pushing,” he said.
The rate of new admissions into hospitals in New York is beginning to ebb, meaning “possibly” a beginning “to flatten out” the rising curve of infections.
Fauci’s remarks on Tuesday were brighter than those he made Monday, when he said he anticipates the U.S. will likely suffer through another coronavirus outbreak in the fall. But he offered a bit of hope, too, saying by then, the country will be better prepared to handle the virus.
“I would anticipate that that would actually happen because of the degree of transmissibility,” Fauci said when asked if the virus will re-emerge.
But he said if it does, “things are going to be very, very different.”
“Our ability to go out and be able to test, identify, isolate, and contact trace will be orders of magnitude better than what it was just a couple of months ago,” he said at the White House on Monday.
Fauci said if the virus returns, there could also be treatments readily available by then. Some are in clinical trial phases now, he added. And scientists are also working on a vaccine, although that is expected to take at least a year. Fauci said it will be key to have a vaccine “that’s on track, and multiple other candidates.”
The U.S. will also be far more prepared after going through the current crisis.
“What we’re going through right now is going to be more than just lessons learned, it’s going to be things that we have available to use that we did not have before,” Fauci said.
