US 'not going in right direction,' says Fauci while Trump hails COVID-19 testing

While US President Donald Trump has credited ‘massive’ testing of coronavirus for the surge in COVID-19 cases, country’s top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci has said that the US is ‘not going in the right direction’. In an interview with an international peer-reviewed general medical journal on July 2, Fauci noted that it is still possible to reopen businesses by the ‘use of public health measures’ even though coronavirus contagion in the US is not heading towards a positive direction.

“I think it’s pretty obvious that we are not going in the right direction,” Dr Anthony Fauci said. “We need to realize that if we do not adhere to the guidelines as we're trying to open, and I don't mean officially, I mean the citizenry, the people that are out there, we're going to be in some serious difficulty.”

But recently, amid the criticism over the US government’s handling of the public health crisis, Trump took to Twitter to say that it is a ‘great news’ for the numbers to rise because of COVID-19 testing being the best in the world. The United States recorded over 50,000 new coronavirus infections on July 1 and over 23 states have reimposed restrictions and postponed the reopening. As per Johns Hopkins University tally, the infections in the US have surpassed 2.7 million and the casualties have reached 128,740. Donald Trump, in the same tweet, claimed that even though cases are spiking, the death rate is “going down”. 

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‘All or none phenomenon’

In the same interview with JAMA, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said that it is not about either backing the reopening of the country or safeguarding public health. According to Fauci, it is an “all or none phenomenon” because either people are going to remain confined to their homes, avoid crowded spaces, maintain social distancing, or they can say “the devil may care and just let it all go”.

US top infectious disease expert has said that the “best way” to resume businesses in the country and that too in a safe way is to use public health measures. He has also noted that in the current situation of the country, “it’s not public health against opening”. According to Fauci, the pool testing along with fragmented screening can be a method authorities can resort to when educational institutes reopen. 

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