White House coronavirus task force member, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has warned that individual states across the US may have relaxed lockdown regulations too soon, adding that the country has so far been unsuccessful in gaining control over the national outbreak.
“In the United States, even in the most strict lockdowns, only about 50% of the country locked down — that allowed for the perpetuation of the outbreak, which we never did get under very good control,” Fauci told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.
“The problem we’re facing now is the attempt to re-open or open the government and get it back to some form of normality. We’re seeing very disturbing spikes in different individual states in the United States,” he added.
Speaking to the Today program, Fauci highlighted that the easing of lockdown restrictions has allowed members of the public to congregate in groups beyond the recommended number, without the use of face masks — a factor, he says, which has contributed to the “kind of outbreaks” the US is now seeing.
US at risk of “greater outbreak”: Pressed on how the US has fared in comparison to the UK and Europe in handling the pandemic, the nation’s top infectious disease expert conceded that the situation has been “more problematic” in the US.
“It’s a serious situation… we got hit very badly, worse than any country with regard to the number of cases and the number of deaths,” Fauci said.
“What we’ve seen over the last several days is a spike in cases that is way beyond the worst spikes that we’ve seen. That is not good news… we’ve got to get that under control, or we risk an even greater outbreak in the United States,” he added.
