Anthony Fauci on COVID-19 crisis in US: 'We're still knee-deep in first wave of this'

As the United States continues to record record-breaking surge in daily coronavirus cases, America’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has warned that it is a “serious situation” that has to be addressed urgently. In the live stream for National Institutes of Health on Facebook and Twitter on July 6, Fauci said that the state of COVID-19 pandemic in the US is “really not good”. While the total coronavirus infections in the country are nearing three million with over 130,200 deaths as per johns Hopkins University tally, US top health expert has said, “we are still knee-deep in the first wave of this”.

Further explaining the current scenario of coronavirus contagion in world’s most virus-hit country, Anthony Fauci told National Institutes of Health Director Dr Francis Collins that the sudden increase in the daily cases would not be considered as a wave, instead, it was the resurgence of COVID-19 cases “superimposed” on the baseline. Fauci even cited the example of the European Union’s graph of coronavirus cases that first spiked and then gradually came down to the baseline, however, the US did not manage to reach the baseline before recording the sudden hike in infections. 

Anthony Fauci, “We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this. And I would say, this would not be considered a wave. It was a surge or a resurgence of infections superimposed upon a baseline,"

"The European Union as an entity, it went up and then came down to baseline," he continued. "Now they're having little blips, as you might expect, as they try to reopen. We went up, never came down to baseline, and now it's surging back up. So it's a serious situation that we have to address immediately."

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‘We’re all in this together’

Without directly mentioning the exact reason for the drastic increase in coronavirus infections in the country, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases indicated to “a series of circumstances” that are linked with certain states in the country that pushed for the reopening but in return, that acted as one of the most prominent factor causing the resurgence of cases. Fauci even reiterated that the administration should resort to public health measures as a “vehicle and a pathway” to ensure the opening of businesses but safely. Therefore, he insisted that it is not medical professionals  “against them” but said, “we’re all in this together”.

US top infectious disease expert, "So we've got to make sure that we don't create this binary type thing of 'it's us against them...It's not. We're all in it together."

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