Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the US coronavirus task force, on Tuesday (May 12) warned against early lifting of coronavirus COVID-19 lockdowns in the U.S., saying that it could cause needless ‘suffering and deaths’.
Addressing a U.S. Senata panel, Fauci, who is also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that the coronavirus outbreak is still out of control in several parts of the country.
“I think we`re going in the right direction, but the right direction does not mean we have by any means total control of this outbreak,” Fauci said, asserting that the state governments must follow the recommendations of the health experts and must not lift the lockdown before there is a significant decline in the number of new infections.
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control and, in fact paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” Fauci said of premature lifting of Lockdowns.
Fauci went into self-quarantine after a White House staffer tested positive for the coronavirus. He was one among four health experts who testified remotely to a Senate panel. Besides Fauci, the other experts included FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn, Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — both in self-quarantine — and Adm. Brett Giroir, from the Department of Health and Human Services.
“The idea of having treatments available or a vaccine to facilitate the reentry of students into the full term would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far,” Fauci said.
Talking about the drugs which have shown efficacy in treatment of COVID-19, Fauci noted that some such drugs have been used on hospitalised patients but they are not even close to being used as prophylaxis or treatment for students. “Even at the top speed we`re going, we don`t see a vaccine, playing to the ability of individuals to get back to school, this term,” Fauci said.
Meanwhile, the coronavirus outbreak that was initially reported in China in late 2019, on Tuesday (May 12, 2020) infected 58,146 people globally and took over 3,305 lives, according to the data by the Worldometers website. As of 11:15 PM IST, the total number of coronavirus cases in the world surged to 43,10,430 while the number of deaths jumped to 2,90,442.
The US with 13,95,020 confirmed cases tops the chart of having the most number of COVID-19 cases in the world. The US on Tuesday reported approximately 760 cases.