- White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci has just offered a new and very dire warning about the state of the coronavirus pandemic in the US at the moment.
- As bad as things are, Dr. Fauci says that January’s mounting toll means we might not have even hit the worst point of the pandemic yet.
- However, Dr. Fauci adds that this scenario can be avoided if more people adhere to coronavirus protection measures like social distancing and wearing face masks.
The wild news headlines related to President Trump, including his second impeachment, have pushed urgent COVID news out of the prime spot in our news cycle for the past couple of days — but that in no way means we’ve rounded some corner or are enjoying a much-needed respite from the pandemic. On the contrary, the latest coronavirus update for the US shows that, through Thursday, more than 23 million coronavirus cases have now been reported here in addition to more than 385,000 deaths from the virus. That’s according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, CNBC’s latest analysis of Johns Hopkins data shows that the US is seeing at least 245,300 new COVID cases each day, as well as 3,360 virus-related deaths every day, based on a seven-day average.
On Tuesday, in fact, the US recorded more coronavirus-related deaths in a single day (4,320) than it has at any point so far during the next pandemic. This is why, the very next day, White House health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a conversation with a TV news station in New York that the worst point of the pandemic for the US might not even have arrived yet, as scary as that sounds.
“It could conceivably get worse,” Dr. Fauci acknowledged, during an interview with PIX11’s Dan Mannarino. “We hope not.”
The way we avoid that dire scenario — a scenario which Dr. Fauci said does not have to be a foregone conclusion — is by doing the things that public health experts like him have been advocating for months. “Adhere uniformly, not in a spotty way, but uniformly to the public health measures that we talk about,” he said. “The uniform wearing of masks, avoiding congregate settings, indoor people congregating, (and) keeping one’s distance.
“I mean, obviously they sound very simple given the enormity of the problem, but we know that it does work. That when these, these public health measures have been implemented consistently, that you can get control of the surge. It’s very difficult to predict how much worse it’s going to get. I hope that we’ve seen the full brunt of the increase.”
Along these lines, President-elect Joe Biden in a Thursday evening address is expected to present an updated coronavirus response strategy that his administration will set about implementing quickly after Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday. Among other things, the plan is expected to detail how an expansion of the nationwide COVID vaccination effort will be funded.
