Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases testifies during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Work and Pensions (HELP) at Capitol Hill in Washington, USA, June 30, 2020.
Kevin Dietsch | Reuters
World leaders cannot “balance lives with the economy” as they weigh decisions to reopen businesses that have been closed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that has already killed more than 517,600 people, the White House health adviser said Thursday. , Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Faced with mounting political pressure and job losses, all states in the United States have reopened parts of their economies in recent weeks. Some, including Texas and Florida, have had to abandon those plans as cases increased and outbreaks occurred across the United States.
“There are people who think in one direction and those who think in the other” when it comes to the decision to reopen the economy amid the coronavirus pandemic safely, Fauci said in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association .
“We are in an unprecedented pandemic,” Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told JAMA. “We have not seen something like this in the last 102 years in 1918, and this is something we must take very seriously because it has many implications.”
Fauci’s comments come after the United States reported more than 50,600 additional cases of coronavirus on Wednesday, the largest single-day increase since the outbreak began, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
The record surge in new cases of coronavirus continues to push the US beyond what some believed was its peak earlier this year. As of Wednesday, the United States reported an average of 43,404 new cases, marking a week that the average exceeded previous highs set in April. CNBC calculates its daily Covid-19 cases using data compiled by Johns Hopkins University based on an average of the past seven days to eliminate fluctuations in daily reports.
“You don’t want to balance lives with the economy,” said Fauci. “So let’s get public health to help us open up the economy instead of two opposing forces.”
Governors of California, Arizona, Michigan, Texas, and Florida have been forced to close bars and other indoor businesses in their states as coronavirus outbreaks continue to increase across the country.
Even states that have reported declining cases and hospitalizations have put a pause in their planned reopens. New Jersey postponed the reopening of dinner at restaurants in the state, and New York City said they would do the same soon after.
Despite the recent surge in cases, Vice President Mike Pence promised Thursday that the Trump administration “will continue to open the United States.”
During an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street,” Pence said the White House will stick with state leaders “at every turn as they continue to take steps to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.”
“But we are going to keep opening the United States again and we will have more days like today,” Pence said.
– CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger and Yelena Dzhanova contributed to this report.
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