Dr. Anthony Fauci: There are ‘good signs’ in US battle against coronavirus, but we’re far from ‘claiming victory’ Jordan Culver

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/04/07/coronavirus-anthony-fauci-social-distancing-deborah-birx/2959335001/

As the U.S. braces for what health experts and President Donald Trump say will be an especially devastating week in the nation’s battle against the novel coronavirus, “positive signs” are emerging in some of the areas hardest hit by the virus.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was quick to caution that the U.S. still has much work to do amid this public health emergency, he pointed to “good signs” from New York, citing data saying the numbers of hospitalizations, ICU admissions and requirements for intubations over the last three days have started to level off.

“Everybody who knows me know I’m very conservative about making projections, but those are the kind of good signs that you look for,” Fauci said during Monday’s coronavirus task force briefing at the White House. “You never even begin to think about claiming victory prematurely, but that’s the first thing you see when you start to see the turnaround.”

Fauci stressed the importance of continued mitigation and social distancing.

“That tells me — instead of saying, ‘Hmm, that’s pretty good’ — it’s we got there through mitigation. We cut off the stream of people who, ultimately, required hospitalization, required intubation, required all of the kinds of extreme methods,” he said.

“So, we’ve just got to realize that this is an indication, despite all the suffering, and the death that has occurred, that what we have been doing has been working. So, the call that I say every time I get to this podium is just keep it up. Because this is gonna get us out of it. This is our best and only great public health tool.”

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