- The daily number of new coronavirus infections in the United States currently hovers around 40,000.
- Dr. Fauci recently stressed that the number of new infections needs to drop down dramatically. Fauci previously said that we could see a massive spike in new coronavirus cases if the number of new infections doesn’t fall below 10,000 by fall.
- The good news is that the number of new coronavirus cases in former hotspots like Florida has dropped drastically in recent days.
Even though the number of new coronavirus cases has subsided in many former hotspots — with Florida and California being just two recent examples — the simple reality is that we’re not out of the woods just yet. As it stands now, the daily number of new coronavirus cases hovers around 40,000, a figure which Dr. Anthony Fauci recently said was an “unacceptably high baseline.” If you recall, Fauci a few weeks ago opined that the U.S. could see a massive spike in coronavirus infections if it can’t get the daily number of new coronavirus cases below 10,000 by fall.
“You look at our numbers now,” Fauci said in early August, “we’re right in the middle of the first wave here. We’re having a surging of cases. The last ones with 50-60,000 per day with 1,000 deaths per day. We’ve got to get those numbers down. And if we don’t get them down, then we’re going to have a really bad situation in the fall. Because as you get indoors and you get the complication of influenza, that’s something we’re going to have to deal with.”
Compounding matters is that the upcoming Labor Day Weekend could result in a wave of new infections on account of public and private celebratory gatherings. And recall, indoor and outdoor gatherings have been found to be disproportionately responsible for coronavirus infections over the past few months. Indoor gatherings are particularly dangerous as they tend to give people a false sense of security. In turn, adhering to coronavirus safety guidelines like social distancing and mask-wearing becomes something of an afterthought.
“We know from prior experience as you get into the holiday weekend, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, there’s a tendency of people to be careless somewhat with regard to the public health measures,” Fauci said in an interview earlier today. “I want to use this opportunity to almost have a plea to the people in this country to realize that we really still need to get our arms around this and to suppress these types of surges we’ve seen.”
On a related note, Dr. Fauci last month explained that poor circulation indoors can lead to a spike in coronavirus infections.
“We need to pay a little bit more attention now to the recirculation of air indoors,” Fauci explained, “which tells you that mask-wearing indoors when you’re in a situation like that is something that is as important as wearing masks when you’re outside dealing with individuals who you don’t know where they came from or who they are.”
As to when a coronavirus vaccine might arrive and finally put this whole pandemic saga behind us, Dr. Fauci this week said we’ll likely know about the safety and efficacy of potential coronavirus vaccine candidates sometime in November.
