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The efficiency with which the virus infects people is “truly remarkable,” said Fauci. He complained that southern states had relaxed their restrictions too quickly.
US immunologist Anthony Fauci has described the coronavirus as “the worst nightmare” for health experts because of its ease of transmission. The efficiency with which the virus infects people is “truly remarkable,” said Fauci, who also advises the White House, on Thursday at an event organized by the US medium The Hill.
In view of the dramatic increase in the number of new infections in the south and west of the US, Fauci advised the affected states to put planned relaxation of corona restrictions on ice. The current corona outbreaks in many parts of the United States were due to the premature reopening of some states.
“We have to do better than that”
After the first escalation of the pandemic in March, the USA would never have managed to reach less than 20,000 new infections per day. Nevertheless, southern states had quickly relaxed their restrictions, Fauci explained. “We must do better.”
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the US reported about 60,000 new infections per day, mainly in the states of Florida, Texas, California and Arizona.
Fauci explained that one of the major challenges of the coronavirus is that there are many infected people who spread the virus but do not show any symptoms themselves. He also called for the fight against the virus not to be politically instrumentalised. “We are all in the same boat here.”
Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases and a member of the White House Corona working group. Last week, at a hearing in Congress, he warned that without decisive countermeasures, the number of new infections per day in the US could soon reach 100,000.
States have opened too early
“In some states, governors and mayors basically jumped the gun on policies and checkpoints and opened a little too early,” Fauci told the “FiveThirtyEight” podcast, which was released on Thursday. The expert and government advisor cited Florida as an example that ignored some guidelines.
Fauci also attributed the fact that the USA is currently experiencing high increases, with around 60,000 new infections detected every day, to the disagreement in American policy: “I think we have to assume that without such a split there would be a more coordinated approach”. Some politicians in the United States, most notably President Donald Trump and some governors, have been accused on several occasions of making decisions in the pandemic from a political rather than a health perspective.
65,551 new infections in 24 hours
In the USA, the number of new coronavirus infections detected daily has once again swollen to a new record high. Within 24 hours a further 65,551 cases of infection were counted, according to figures published on Thursday evening (local time) by Johns Hopkins University. The previous 24-hour record was 60,209 cases of infection and had been recorded on Tuesday.
The total number of recorded cases of infection in the country is now 3.1 million, according to the university. A further 1,000 deaths have been recorded since Wednesday. The total number of recorded deaths due to the infection thus rose to 133,195.
- Hector Pascua, philippine-austrian press
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