Dr. Anthony Fauci is warning about the challenges ahead for the United States as the fall and winter approaches.
During a panel discussion with doctors from the Harvard Medical School, Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, discussed the country’s current situation where the coronavirus pandemic as he urged Americans to remain vigilant in mitigating the spread of the virus.
“We need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter because it’s not going to be easy,” Fauci said on Thursday.
Fauci also warned Americans not to “ever underestimate” how bad the pandemic can get or focus on finding a silver lining.
He added, “We’ve been through this before. Don’t ever, ever underestimate the potential of the pandemic. And don’t try and look at the rosy side of things.”
Watch the video below:
Dr. Fauci warns that we should “hunker down” for fall amid the COVID catastrophe and flu season. @VictorOquendo has the details. https://t.co/bJ0jgr58KF pic.twitter.com/R6O95MgcWq
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 11, 2020
For months, Fauci and President Donald Trump have clashed on mitigation measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
While Fauci has urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance, Trump has discredited the effectiveness of masks and urged state and local officials to reopen businesses and schools despite the alarming surge in cases that ravaged many states over the summer.
In fact, the president even encouraged his supporters to “liberate” multiple states that enforced stricter stay-at-home guidelines to mitigate the spread of the virus.
Fauci’s latest remarks come just days after his previous comments stressing the importance of getting the number of daily reported cases below 10,000.
Days before Labor Day, Fauci projected that the United States would be faced with a catastrophic fall and winter season based on the “unacceptably high” number of cases currently being reported on a daily basis.
“We’re right around 40,000 new cases, that’s an unacceptably high baseline,” Fauci said at the time. “We’ve got to get it down, I’d like to see it 10,000 or less, hopefully, less.”
Since September 6, there have been under 40,000 new cases reported daily, with an average of 35,616 per day over the past week, according to The New York Times.
As of Friday morning, the United States has reported over 6.5 million confirmed coronavirus cases as the death toll is more than 196,000.