Dr Anthony Fauci says shutdown in February could have saved more lives in US
The US could have ‘obviously’ saved lives if the country had introduced measures to stop the spread of COVID-19 earlier, admits Dr Anthony Fauci, top health expert and a member of the COVID-19 taskforce in the US.
Dr Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said during an interview that earlier efforts could have prevented deaths but health officials faced a lot of pushback about shutting things down. “Obviously if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then," said Dr Fauci during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The US is now reporting more cases (557,590) and more deaths (over 22,100) than any other country, according to the John Hopkins tracker.
When asked about a New York Times report that experts, including Dr Fauci, had suggested implementing social distancing measures as early as the third week of February, but US President Donald Trump did not announce them until mid-March, Dr Fauci said health officials can only make recommendations from a health standpoint.
“We look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes, it’s not. But it is what it is. We are where we are right now,” he said.
When asked if social distancing, physical distancing, and stay-at-home measures could have prevented deaths had they been implemented in the third week of February, instead of mid-March, Dr Fauci replied: “Again, it’s the ‘what would have, what could have’.”
“It’s very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say, that if you had a process that was ongoing, and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated.”
Rolling reentry
The Trump administration issued new guidelines on March 16, asking all Americans to avoid social gatherings and groups of more than 10 people. It asked the young and healthy to engage in schooling from home when possible, avoid discretionary travel and eating and drinking at bars, restaurants and public food courts. The social distancing guidelines are set to expire on April 30.
Asked when Americans can expect the country to begin reopening, Fauci said the critical issue will be whether the US can identify, isolate and contact-trace new cases in real-time, which is known as containment.
“It is not going to be a light switch that we say, OK, it is now June, July or whatever, click, the light switch goes back on,” Fauci said. “It’s going to be depending on where you are in the country, the nature of the outbreak that you have already experienced, and the threat of an outbreak that you may not have experienced. So it's going to have to look at the situation in different parts of the country. Obviously, New York will very different from say Washington State,” said Dr Fauci.
Dr Fauci said the process of reopening the US may begin next month, but emphasized that it will not be a one-size-fits-all and it will be a rolling re-entry. “We are hoping that at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down,” he said.
Dr Fauci cautioned there is always a possibility, as “we get into next fall, and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound.”
“And, hopefully, what we have gone through now, and the capability that we have for much, much better testing capability, much, much better sera surveillance capability, and the ability to respond with countermeasures, with drugs that work, that it will be an entirely different ball game...If we do (have a rebound), hopefully, we will be able to respond to that rebound in a much more effective way than what we see now in January, February, March,” he said.