Washington siyasat.net
Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, has warned that the US faces a “crisis situation” over the coming months as COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths surge beyond already record levels.
The US recorded a single-day high of 2800 coronavirus deaths on Thursday (AEDT) according to Johns Hopkins University as well as 200,000 new cases – the second highest number on record.
President-elect Joe Biden has confirmed on CNN that he will keep Fauci on as a chief medical adviser and a member of his COVID-19 advisory team.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious diseases expert, is still pleading with Americans to take the coronavirus seriously.
Biden said it was also his “inclination” that, on his inauguration, he would ask the public to wear masks for the first 100 days of his term to help drive down the spread of the virus, following Fauci’s grim warning.
“Just 100 days to mask, not forever. 100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Masks will be compulsory wherever federal jurisdiction gives Biden the authority to issue a standing order, such as federal buildings and interstate flights.
Biden also said he would follow the example of former presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton and get vaccinated as soon as Fauci told them the vaccine was safe for them to use. Obama told Sirius radio that he would consider getting vaccinated on live television to help reassure Americans that the treatment was safe.
Earlier, Fauci repeated his grim forecast that there would be “a surge, superimposed upon a surge” of cases and deaths over the next few weeks as Americans travel across the country and gather together indoors during the holiday season.
“The effect of Thanksgiving is going to be realised two weeks from now, literally as we are getting into the travelling season for Christmas and Hanukkah,” Fauci told MSNBC on Friday (AEDT).
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, said: “We as a country are in a very, very difficult, if not a crisis situation when it comes to the explosion of cases.”
Fauci said hospitals in many parts of the country were on the verge of being overwhelmed because of the rapid increase in COVID hospitalisations.
(www.siyasat.net is Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India based website)
