Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a White House coronavirus task force member, offered a rare glimmer of hope amid surging confirmed coronavirus cases during an interview on CNN Tuesday morning.
After saying that the Trump administration is continuing to push mitigation efforts such as social distancing in the hopes of seeing a turnaround, Fauci was asked about what he sees as “early signs” of hope as New York sees a decline in the rate of growth in new infections.
“It occurs in phases,” Fauci said, before describing how new cases that require hospitalization will increase exponentially from day to day before the number starts leveling off.
“Once you start to level off, then you’re going to have less people who are going to be going into intensive care,” Fauci said. “And then later on, because it always lags, you’ll see a decrease in deaths.”
Fauci pointed out that the data so far shows “inklings” of hope.
“I don’t want to put too much stock on it because you don’t want to get overconfident, you just want to keep pushing in what you’re doing,” Fauci said, referring to mitigation efforts. “You’re starting to see that the daily increases are not in that steep incline, they’re starting to be able to possibly flatten out.”
Reiterating the importance of looking at data carefully, Fauci said that there’s “hope it’s going in the right direction,” but that the goal is attaining the “multi-phase component where it ultimately starts to come down.”
Watch Fauci’s remarks below:
Fauci responds to New York seeing decline in the rate of growth in new infections pic.twitter.com/tH0WOL4yZA
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) March 31, 2020
Yea we’re saved! Praise tRump!
Ok, but the inkling is only being facilitated in areas of the country that have honest, smart leadership at the state / local level. The criminal inaction of the red states, and the criminal indifference of the COVID-45 deniers, is going to get the US to well over 200,000 deaths.
Inking on land? Sure, where, but now this: What’s the Navy saying when a boat is going down-THERE ARE SAILORS IN THE WATER!
More than “inklings” California has bent the curve, especially the Bay Area with our early closure.
We are now no longer projected to see demand exceed icu and hospital capacity, and places like kaiser ( largest integrated single payer and biggest health care supplier in Northern California) is seeing admissions flatten. I.e. those coming into care equal those being discharged.
Washington state (early leadership from Inslee, who I am usually not a fan of) just slightly trailing California, is similar.
The states that are going to get killed are red states, with governors who listened to trump and Fox News. Florida, despite having much later infections, and Texas, are both projected to have more deaths than California, and are going the wrong way. Same with Tennessee. I would expect Alabama and Arizona to lose get killed, as Mississippi now is.
Bottom line is outside of New York, where De Blasio really really screwed the pooch, and has blood on his hands, democratically led states (with a few notably exceptions like Ohio) did much better, avoided the worst outcomes created by following the trump death cult.
Please give Dr Fauci credit for trying when he is up against President McConnell and boy toy Trump.