National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that a coronavirus surge throughout America is likely following the holiday season.
Anchor Dana Bash said, “President-elect Biden said the darkest days of the covid-19 pandemic is ahead of us. We are averaging 200 thousand now new cases and more than 2,000 deaths each day. Do you agree that the worst is still yet to come?”
Fauci said, “You know, I do, Dana, and the reason I’m concerned and my colleagues and public health are concerned also is that we very well might see a post-seasonal in the sense of Christmas-New Year’s surge. I’ve described it as a surge upon a surge because if you look at the slope, the incline of cases as we have experienced as we have gone into the late fall and soon to be early winter, it is really quite troubling.”
He added, “You mentioned the numbers yourself quite correctly when you’re dealing with a baseline of 200,000 new cases a day and about 2,000 deaths per day, with the hospitalizations over 120,000. We are really at a very critical point. If you put more pressure on the system by what might be a post-seasonal surge because of the traveling and the likely congregating of people for the good warm purposes of being together for the holidays, it’s very tough for people to not do that. And, yet, even though we advise not t, it’s going to happen. So I share the concern of President-elect Biden that as we get into the next few weeks, it might actually get worse.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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