Posted on 07/09/2020 9:20:07 AM PDT by RandFan
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."
Fauci struck a different note than he did a day earlier in an interview with The Wall Street Journal when he said states should consider shutdowns.
"I think any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down," he said Wednesday. "It's not for me to say because each state is different."
On Thursday, though, he softened his remarks, saying, "I would hope we don't have to resort to shutdown."
He added that shutdowns "would not be viewed very favorably."
Speaking at an event hosted by The Hill and sponsored by the Biosimilars Forum, he said hard-hit states should take steps like closing bars, which many have done in recent days, and avoiding large gatherings.
He pointed to California, Arizona, Texas and Florida as accounting for 50 percent of new infections.
"We've got to get them to do very fundamental things," Fauci said. "Closing bars, avoiding congregations of large numbers of people, getting the citizenry in those states to wear masks, maintain six foot distance, [and washing hands]."
"If we can do that consistently, I would tell you almost certainly you're going to see a downturn in those infections," he added.
As new cases have spiked to around 60,000 per day in the United States, Fauci had a somber assessment.
"We've been hit harder than any country in the world," he said.
In contrast, President Trump has continued to downplay the worsening outbreak, tweeting on Thursday that the new cases are simply the result of more testing, despite experts widely saying that is not true. Experts point out that the percentage of tests that come back positive is rising as are hospitalizations in key states, signs that the outbreak cannot be blamed solely on more testing.
Trump also earlier encouraged states to quickly reopen their economies.
Fauci said Thursday that some Southern states now being hit hard reopened too soon, and not in accordance with the benchmarks in the White House guidelines.
"What we've seen, unfortunately, is that in some of the southern states, the states have not really followed those guidelines in some respects and jumped over the benchmarks," Fauci said.
The co-President. One of many.
Enough with the Faucism!
They’ve had three months to prepare for the post-lockdown “surge”.
They should be more than ready.
“Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, ”
Has he gotten ANYTHING right so far? Wake up people. This is a scam!
COVID-19 is a nasty strain of a chest cold. Yes, it is killing people. But probably at 3× the rate of seasonal influenza. It’s not worth shutting down the economy.
“We’ve been hit harder than any country in the world,” he said. “””””””””
Unless every resident of every country was tested he would have no way of knowing that.
“...This man is a TYRANT...”
Why does Trump keep him on? He is as bad as the Marxist Democrat governors....
Fauci’s daily pronouncement. The self-appointed pope.
LOL! The latest ideology of the Left.
Pause Fauxi!
Trump has a strange reluctance to fire people. Even those who pose a danger to him.
I’m sorry, but Trump’s responsible for having this guy and his policies bringing the force of the federal government to the Big Pharma/Marxist revolution cause.
We need to start taking Trump to task for this BS.
Who cares what he says? He has no legal authority- and in fact not much medical or scientific authority either.
The 81 yr old guy is a 53-yr state employee, a hack who has never practiced medicine and just says or does whatever he thinks is most helpful to the Dems and his state employer.
I stole that from another FReeper. I can’t remember who. Sorry, FReeper I stole it from.
Mass delusion. Or deliberate subterfuge.
These “hard hit” states are maintaining flat death curves which are miniscule compared to New York and other eastern states.
This is like a psyops operation.
We need to pause Fauci.
Fire him today, and he'll have a book out by mid-October.
Fauci says “jump!” and state governors who apparently hold unlimited dictatorial power ask “how high?”
He has more power than you think.
Trump needs a COVID Exit Strategy and Step One is to fire this twerp.
President Trump listened to his VP and brought Fauci in. Thank Pence.
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