Time To Pause Reopenings In States With Growing Infections, Fauci Says
In an interview with The Hill, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, "I think any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down." With infections surging in so many places, the question of re-instituting restrictions is being fiercely debated by government and public health officials across the U.S.
Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Thursday that hard-hit states should not be moving forward with reopening,but stopped short of calling for full shutdowns. "I would think we need to get the states pausing in their opening process, looking at what did not work well and try to mitigate that," Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, told The Hill's Steve Clemons. "I don't think we need to go back to an extreme of shutting down." (Sullivan, 7/9)
COVID-19 is a public health official's "worst nightmare," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease doctor, said Thursday. "What is the worst nightmare that a public health official could have and what are the things that we fear the most?" Fauci said. "The answer is consistent among me and my colleagues: The emergence of a respiratory illness that is highly transmissible it its efficiency of going from person to person that has a significant degree of morbidity and mortality." (Miller, 7/9)
The rising number of coronavirus infections in the U.S. proves the pandemic is far from abating. New cases are setting single-day records in several states and declining in only two. While the nations top medical officials say states should pause reopening in order to control virus spread, the Trump administration insists schools should resume as normal this fall. (Alcindor, 7/9)
They raced to shut down their economies in March, and many opened them just as quickly in May. Now, governors across the country are facing growing pressure from public health experts and local leaders to reimpose stay-at-home orders as the only way to regain control of coronavirus outbreaks that threaten to overwhelm hospitals and send the death count rocketing. (Witte, 7/9)
President Donald Trumps top health officials can no longer use the White House briefing room as a daily bullhorn for public safety messaging during the pandemic, so theyve settled on a different strategy: contradict Trump on other platforms. Anthony Fauci on Thursday used a panel discussion on the future of health care to warn that were still in a significant problem, an assessment at odds with the presidents assertion that things are getting better. (Cancryn and Ehley, 7/9)
Four months after she helped convince President Trump that the U.S. needed to shut down to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, Deborah Birx again faces the difficult mission of counseling the president about the serious public health ramifications of the pandemic. Administration officials said Mr. Trump is focused foremost on boosting the economy, adding that he is adamant the country should remain open despite record coronavirus case numbers. ... Yet Dr. Birx, the White Houses coronavirus coordinator, remains an influential figure in the administration, even as Mr. Trump has marginalized other health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the governments top infectious disease expert. (Restuccia and Armour, 7/9)
The rising tide of coronavirus cases in the U.S. South and West, coming four months into the outbreak, emerged amid a patchwork of often confusing or conflicting rules across government that have proved inconsistent and often difficult to enforce, making the pandemic harder to halt. (Campo-Flores, Ballhaus and Bauerlein, 7/9)
The sprawling Camp Ozark in Mount Ida, Arkansas, was shuttered after an undisclosed number of campers and a counselor contracted the coronavirus. Harvard University students will take courses online, even those living on campus. In Florida, nearly 50 hospitals on Thursday had intensive care units at full capacity. The big US reopening of the pandemic summer, it turns out, has gone way off track. (Sanchez, 7/9)
