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Post by Admin on Apr 9, 2020 18:50:45 GMT
The U.S. is enduring a "very bad week" during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci says. But he also says that the American public's embrace of physical separation and other restrictions is sharply reducing projections of the death toll from the respiratory virus. The final toll currently "looks more like 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000" that U.S. officials previously estimated, Fauci said.  Fauci, America's leading expert on infectious diseases and a key member of the White House's coronavirus task force, also said that antibody tests have been developed and will be available "very soon." Fauci discussed COVID-19 and its death toll Thursday morning, during a segment of NBC News' Today show. "The number of deaths and the cases that we're seeing right now are really validating what we said, that this is going to be a very bad week, on the one hand," Fauci said. "On the other hand, as you can see there are some glimmers of hope, particularly when you look at the situation in New York — where the number of hospitalizations, requirements for intensive care and intubation over the last few days have actually stabilized and [are] starting to come down." The new projection sharply undercuts an estimate Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made just 11 days ago. In late March, he said "between 100,000 and 200,000" people in the U.S. could die from COVID-19. The 60,000 figure is reflected in a new projection by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, or IHME, a research center at the University of Washington. The estimate predicts the U.S. death toll through early August; it also predicts that COVID-19 deaths will peak in this country on April 11. The revised analysis comes as millions of Americans are living under "shelter in place" and business shutdown orders that have contributed to massive job losses and other disruptions. The pandemic has left many anxiously waiting for the virus to peak in their state. |
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Post by Admin on Apr 11, 2020 5:03:13 GMT
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of President Trump’s coronavirus task force, said Friday that certificates of immunity for Americans have been discussed during White House meetings, according to a report.
Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CNN that the idea that people carry such certificates to prove they have tested positive for antibodies might “have some merit under certain circumstances.”
“It’s one of those things that we talk about when we want to make sure that we know who the vulnerable people are and not,” Fauci said, adding that the antibody tests will be available soon.
The top infectious disease expert added that antibody tests will be important for medical workers on the front line of the pandemic.
“If their antibody test is positive, one can formulate strategies about whether or not they would be at risk or vulnerable to getting re-infected. This would be important for health care workers, for first-line fighters,” he said on the network.
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Post by Admin on Apr 13, 2020 5:21:23 GMT
Dr. Fauci: If Trump had acted earlier, lives could have “obviously” been saved
The Times report aligns with predictions prior to the coronavirus pandemic that President Trump was setting the US up to botch its reaction to a hypothetical future outbreak, as well as criticisms once Covid-19 began to spread. “If we’d jumped into contract tracing and testing, social distancing, and health system preparedness as soon as we heard reports from China, we’d be in a very different situation now,” Céline Gounder, an epidemiologist at New York University, told Vox’s German Lopez in early April.
In the wake of the Times report, medical officials echoed the opinions experts had voiced from the beginning. This morning, Fauci, the now-famous epidemiologist on the coronavirus task force, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that the US “obviously” could have saved lives, if it had “started mitigation earlier.”
“Could you have done something a little bit earlier? Would it have had an impact? Obviously.”
Fauci went on to stress that many factors were involved in the US response. But when Tapper asked if a more strenuous US response could have saved lives, he reiterated, “Obviously,” and added, “There was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”
Fauci stressed that a huge number of considerations, from economic to logistical concerns, hampered the efforts, none of which are under Trump’s direct control.
But Trump also directly impeded efforts to fight the disease beginning years before the outbreak, when he eliminated the department of the National Security Council which would have been responsible for pandemic preparedness. He likewise worked to erode the CDC’s budget and autonomy, and when the outbreak began, he allowed petty internal infighting to take precedence over swift and effective responsiveness.
Some of this was well-known before the Times report. But the Times report makes clear just how many people in Trump’s administration understood and correctly foresaw the need to act to prepare for the pandemic. It reveals just how much opportunity there was to have changed course much, much earlier. Instead, Trump’s delays and refusal to listen to experts may have led the country to a worst-case scenario — one that’s not over yet.
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Post by Admin on Apr 13, 2020 22:27:19 GMT
Dr. Fauci clarifies questions from weekend interview, stressing he is speaking for himself and not the president. #FoxNews
Live: Trump, White House Coronavirus Task Force Hold Briefing | NBC News
President Donald Trump raised eyebrows April 12 when he retweeted a supporter who had used the hashtag #FireFauci, a reference to Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s top public health officials who has regularly joined the president on the podium in the White House press room.
The tweet that Trump shared was posted by DeAnna Lorraine, a pro-Trump Republican candidate who garnered 1.8% of the vote in an all-primary challenge to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. In the primary, Lorraine finished behind Pelosi, two other Democrats and one other Republican.
The tweet came hours after Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper that lives could have been saved if the country had "shut everything down" from the beginning.
On April 12, Lorraine tweeted, "Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could've saved more lives. Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci…"
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Post by Admin on Apr 16, 2020 23:27:02 GMT
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was ready to blame everyone but Donald Trump for America’s coronavirus calamity during a Thursday morning appearance on The View. That included China, the World Health Organization and, most notably, Dr. Anthony Fauci.
After commiserating with host Joy Behar about their shared goal of trying not to “gain a hundred pounds in isolation,” Graham began singing the president’s praises to taking decisive actions “that have flattened the curve and kept the exposure in the United States down.”
“On what we need to do better, I think the key to me is testing,” the senator continued. “I can't really blame the president, but we are struggling with testing on a large scale. You really can't go back to work until we have more tests that shows who has it and who doesn't, and we're beginning to turn the corner on that.”
“Well, I do think that you can blame the president,” Sunny Hostin shot back, arguing that the Trump administration lost valuable time “downplaying the threats, stalling funds, not getting appropriate testing” and more.
After quoting Trump, who said “I take no responsibility at all” while declaring a national emergency last month, Hostin asked, “Do you agree with that? That he bears no responsibility as the president of the United States?”
“I think he’s done a good job,” Graham said, skirting the direct question. Then came the pivot.
“I blame China,” he continued. “This virus came out of China. It didn’t come out of the United States. The Chinese lied to the world about the nature of the virus. We lost a lot of time.”
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