The United States’ top infectious disease expert said Thursday that new cases of the coronavirus are a certainty as states begin to roll back restrictions. States need to proceed carefully as they take steps to reopen businesses and allow greater freedom of movement, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
“We will get blips … there’s no doubt,” Fauci told NBC’s Today show. “When you pull back there will be cases, and what we need to do is make sure (states) have in place the capability of identifying, isolating and contact tracing individuals.”
Fauci urged states that don’t have that capability to go very slowly. “You can’t just leap over things and get into a situation where you’re really tempting a rebound. That’s the thing I get concerned about,” he said.
His warnings came a day after President Donald Trump said the federal government would not extend its social distancing guidelines past Thursday, and Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, predicted that by July the country would be “really rocking again,” despite health experts assessing that as highly unlikely.
Trump planned to meet on Thursday with Gov. Phil Murphy, D-N.J., as the president aims to focus on the reopening process that has started in many places. Murphy told Fox News before leaving for Washington that he intended to discuss with Trump both testing capacity and federal money for New Jersey, among the states hardest hit by the pandemic.
“We need help with the here and now,” the governor said. “Educators, police, fire, EMS, the front-line stuff. We’re bleeding resources, helping people whether they’e lost their jobs, whether they’re sick, small businesses, et cetera. That’s where we need a big dose of federal cash.”
Trump is trying to shift to a different phase in the virus response as the rate of new hospitalizations and cases has slowed in many states, even as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed American lives lost in the Vietnam War.
The president said Wednesday he plans to resume out-of-state travel, starting with a trip to Arizona next week, after spending more than a month mostly cooped up in the White House. He also said he hopes to hold large campaign rallies in the coming months, even though medical experts have said there is little hope of having a vaccine by that time.
Via TIME
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