Many health officials are expressing their voices of clarity during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is one of them.
He is a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, who is working alongside President Donald Trump to tackle the ongoing outbreak.
The nation’s infectious disease specialist has given a realistic take on how long the outbreak would last.
Dr. Fauci told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “You’ve got to be realistic and you’ve got to understand that you don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline. So you’ve got to respond, in what you see happen. And if you keep seeing this acceleration, it doesn’t matter what you say.”
“One week, two weeks, three weeks — you’ve got to go with what the situation on the ground is,” he added.
He said there is an “inkling” of flattening the curve; however, officials cannot make any decisions until they have data showing what they are dealing with.
Dr. Fauci’s statement contrasts what Trump said over the past week. The President told Fox News that he wants the nation to reopen by Easter (April 12) despite a surge in new coronavirus cases and expert’s repeated social distancing recommendations.
Trump said, “We’ll only do it if it’s good. And maybe we do sections of the country, we do large sections of the country. That could be, too.”
Dr. Fauci told Science Magazine that the President does listen to him. He said, “To [Trump’s] credit, even though we disagree on some things, he listens. He goes his own way. He has his own style. But on substantive issues, he does listen to what I say.”
Last week, Trump enthusiastically tweeted that malaria drugs – chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine – have shown “very encouraging results” at treating the new coronavirus. However, Dr. Fauci modestly explained that more research is needed to determine whether the drugs work against COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.
Dr. Fauci told Science Magazine that sometimes Trump’s press briefings do not comport with facts. The NIAID director said, “But I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down. OK, he said it. Let’s try and get it corrected for the next time.”
Dr. Fauci admitted on “Face The Nation” that New York City would run out of medical equipment in a couple of weeks. He said, “New York is the most hard hit.”
“So not only is New York trying to get resources themselves, but we’re going to be pouring it in from the federal government,” he added. “So it would be a combination of local and federal. But it’s very, very clear that they are a very high priority.”
Dr. Fauci went on to say, “We’re going to get hit. There’s no doubt about it. We see it in New York. New York is terribly suffering. But the kinds of mitigation issues that are going on right now, the things that we’re seeing in this country, this physical separation, at the same time as we’re preventing an influx of cases coming in, I think that’s gonna go a long way to preventing us from becoming in Italy.”
