Dr. Fauci reportedly to testify reopening too early risks ‘needless suffering and death’ from Coronavirus

CNBC ^ | 05/12/2020 | Christine Wilkie

[SeekAndFind]

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist and a key member of President Donald Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, reportedly plans to publicly warn states Tuesday that prematurely reopening their economies will cause “needless suffering and death.”

On Monday night, The New York Times’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported that Fauci had sent her an email ahead of his public testimony the following day at a hearing of Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“The major message that I wish to convey to the Senate HLP committee tomorrow is the danger of trying to open the country prematurely,” Fauci wrote in the email, which Stolberg posted on Twitter.

“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to: ‘Open America Again,’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country. This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal,” wrote Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The email appears to put Fauci at odds with President Donald Trump, who has encouraged states to reopen as soon as it was possible to safely do so. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to an email late Monday night about Fauci’s remarks.

The position of the White House is that it should be left to individual governors whether to follow the guidelines set out by the Centers for Disease Control, which describe criteria that states should reach before they begin a phased reopening.

These include a downward trajectory in the number of “positive tests” or “documented cases” of coronavirus for at least two consecutive weeks. Other recommendations include being able to provide “robust contact tracing” for people who test positive, and “surveillance testing” for high-risk groups.

[fuzzylogic]

Bingo...we’ve done more than flatten the curve. We also know infinitely more than we did 2 months ago about who is at risk.

We aren’t going to overwhelm the hospitals, we just need to continue precautions.

All of this is now unjustifiable. Now it treads into the realm of criminal - at least in America, per our Constitution. They seem to need reminding.

[virgil]

He’s not the exactly the oracle of Delphi. Stop listening to this twerp.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

We flattened the freaking curve. His demands seem to evolve.

That's because the spotlight is moving and Fauci is doing a disjointed two-step to keep his ass in it.

Open up the businesses, send people back to work. Let the sheep wear their stupid, feelgood (and useless) bandanas and painter's masks. Just get this economy going again.

[landerwy]

Needless death and suffering for staying closed I say.