- The novel coronavirus pandemic has thrown the entire planet out of wack, and many people are looking for any signs of regaining a sense of normalcy in the near future.
- Dr. Anthony Fauci told CBS This Morning in an interview that taking a trip this summer “can be in the cards” if Americans continue to abide by social distancing protocols.
- As of Wednesday afternoon, morning than 420,000 Americans had tested positive for COVID-19.
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At the moment, the list of priorities for most Americans does not include summer vacation, but as cabin fever starts to set in for the millions of people who are doing their best to stay inside as the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to put us all at risk, some hope certainly wouldn’t hurt. And that’s exactly what Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, offered early on Thursday when speaking to CBS This Morning about the response to the pandemic.
In the interview, which you can watch below, Dr. Fauci stresses two things. First, our mitigation efforts are making a difference, and the projections show a less dire future as a result of our social distancing practices and virtually every state in the country issuing stay-at-home orders. Second, and more importantly, Fauci says that we need to “redouble our efforts” if we want the curve to flatten even further and make those projections go lower. Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas just because the situation isn’t quite as terrifying.
Nevertheless, everyone wants to know when we might be able to take steps back to normalcy.
Speaking with CBS This Morning host Tony Dokoupil, Fauci said the following when asked if Americans can expect to go on trips they had planned for this summer: “Hopefully, by the time we get to the summer, we will have taken many steps in that direction [of getting back to normal].”
Dokoupil then asked Fauci if he could even imagine a summer where people are going to beaches, baseball games, weddings, or reunions. “It can be in the cards,” Fauci responded, “and I say that with some caution, because as I said, when we do that, when we pull back and try to open up the country […] we have to be prepared that when the infections start to rear their heads again, that we have in place a very aggressive and effective way to identify, isolate, contact trace, and make sure we don’t have those spikes that we’re seeing now. So the answer to your question is yes, if we do the things that we need to do to prevent the resurgence.”
In the past, Dr. Fauci has been reluctant to project too far ahead, but hearing him say that we might be taking trips again as early as this summer should help to put many minds at ease. The latest numbers from The COVID Tracking Project show that the number of daily positive cases and deaths remains high, as more than 420,000 Americans have now tested positive for COVID-19 since this began, but the much-discussed “lowering of the curve” is beginning to become evident in some of the hardest-hit areas, including New York.
