Members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force said on Friday the nature of the coronavirus pandemicAnd how they are addressing it, has changed dramatically since it started almost four months ago. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, called the change a “paradigm shift” that has been largely driven by young people.
“It is a paradigm shift because we are dealing with youth, people who are going to be asymptomatic, and people who are becoming infected in a community setting, not in an outbreak setting where you know who to identify, isolate, and contact.” Fauci said.
The working group briefing, the first in nearly two months, was held after the number of new coronavirus cases in the US. reached a record high of 40,000 on Friday, a resurgence that has prompted some governors to back down, or at least halt, plans to reopen their state.
“What I meant by what is not working, and this is not the fault of anyone, or of any institution, is that what we are dealing with at the moment is community outreach in the context of a substantial proportion of the people who are they are infecting, they don’t know they are infected, they are not symptomatic, they are asymptomatic individuals, “Fauci said. “The classic paradigm of contact identification, isolation and tracking, to contain that, is very difficult to make it work in those circumstances.”
While the increase is believed to partly reflect expanded evidence, there is also evidence that the virus is making a comeback.
Fauci said some areas of the country are “very well,” but said that other areas “face a serious problem.” He did not elaborate on why some areas still face an increase in cases and hospitalizations, but urged people to follow the guidance given by their local and state leaders.
“A risk to you is not only isolated for you,” he said. “Because if you become infected, you are part, innocently or inadvertently, of propagating the dynamic process of a pandemic.”
He said that most people who get infected now are young, warning people in that age group: “If you get infected, you will infect someone else … and eventually infect someone who is vulnerable.”
“The only way we’re going to end is by ending together.”
Unlike previous briefings, it was held at the headquarters of the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, not at the White House.
-Contribution: Fin Gomez and The Associated Press
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