‘I have to disagree.’ Fauci breaks with Trump on US ‘rounding the corner’ on COVID-19
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, disagreed on Friday with President Donald Trump’s assertion that the country is “rounding the corner” on the coronavirus pandemic.
“I really do believe we’re rounding the corner,” Trump said during a White House briefing on Thursday. He added that new weekly cases have gone down by 44% since July.
“I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with that because if you look at the thing that you just mentioned, the statistics, Andrea, they’re disturbing,” Fauci told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Friday. “We’re plateauing at around 40,000 cases a day and the deaths are around 1,000.”
Fauci added that the U.S. likely won’t return to pre-coronavirus “normality” until “well into 2021.”
“But by the time you mobilize the distribution of the vaccine and get a majority or more of the population vaccinated and protected, that’s likely not going to happen until the end of 2021,” Fauci said. “If you’re talking about getting back to a degree of normality prior to COVID, it’s going to be well into 2021, towards the end of 2021.”
Fauci’s comments come as the U.S. has reported around 35,200 new cases every day, which is down more than 12% from a week ago, according to a CNBC analysis of Johns Hopkins University data. As of Friday, the U.S. has more than 6.4 million confirmed cases and 192,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
Fauci also expressed worries that transmitting the virus could increase if people interact indoors.
“Being indoors absolutely increases the risk” of transmission, he said. “I am concerned when I see things starting indoors, and that becomes more compelling when you move into fall and winter season.”
On the same day Trump said the U.S. is nearing the end of its struggle with the virus, Fauci told a Harvard Medical School panel that Americans can’t “underestimate” the pandemic.
“Don’t ever, ever underestimate the potential of the pandemic. And don’t try and look at the rosy side of things,” Fauci said.
“We need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter because it’s not going to be easy,” he continued.
Fauci has broken with Trump in the past, saying that the U.S. shouldn’t pursue herd immunity after Trump referenced it in an interview earlier this month, McClatchy News reported. Fauci also denied “misleading the American public” after Trump retweeted a claim in July that he had.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 5:02 PM with the headline "‘I have to disagree.’ Fauci breaks with Trump on US ‘rounding the corner’ on COVID-19."