As the COVID-19 pandemic increases in the United States, the Trump administration task force that leads federal efforts to stem the spread of the virus continues to carry some optimistic messages.
But according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the task force as the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, those claims don’t always coincide with reports he receives from the frontline of the crisis.
During an in-depth interview to air Tuesday night on ABC News as part of a prime-time special, “American Catastrophe: How Did We Get Here?” The United States government is still struggling to provide adequate evidence for Americans and enough personal protective equipment for essential workers.
“We keep hearing when we go to these working group meetings that these [issues] they are being corrected, ”said Fauci. “But even when you go into the trenches, you still hear about it.”
Tune into ABC Tuesday at 9 pm ET for the special report “20/20” “American Catastrophe: How Did We Get Here?”
Fauci said he does not have a “good response” and that he “cannot explain” the discrepancy, especially since those issues are not part of his “daily” responsibilities, but part of the problem is due to the fact that “many of the things that We needed they were not produced in the United States. ”
The US government ended up competing for those materials with other nations affected by the pandemic, and the White House finally had to invoke emergency powers to pressure American companies to help.
Those challenges were exacerbated by what Fauci admitted were the first missteps in tests conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, which developed tests that “didn’t work” initially because, apparently, their results were based on potentially contaminated samples. . That forced the federal government to rely even more on private companies.
When asked about the missteps he may have committed, even when initially telling the public that the average American did not need to wear a mask, he said such decisions were “based on information at this time.”
“As a scientist, what you should always do is be humble enough to know that when you get additional information, even information that might conflict with what you previously felt, then you change your point of view and change your recommendations based on the data, “he said. “That’s what science is about. Science is a learning process. “
During a White House briefing on Thursday, President Donald Trump stated that the United States has seen “a tremendous increase” in its testing capabilities, conducting more than 51 million tests across the country so far, and insisted on that the country is “very strong in supplies.”
“Remember how I used to say the closets were bare?” Trump said. “Well now the cabinets are just the opposite.”
Trump also said that it has been “a tremendous week” for the United States in the fight against COVID-19 and insisted: “We are doing very well throughout the country.”
However, in his interview with ABC News, Fauci expressed concern about the “explosion” of cases in various southern states, which he says is being fueled by “an increase in the spread of the community,” in which people infected with the disease but showing no symptoms are spreading it to others.
It is “a really serious problem,” he said. “They must be concerned that, even if they themselves do not obtain any serious results, they are part of the spread of the pandemic.”
The United States government, Fauci said, was certainly not the only one to make costly mistakes. In his interview with ABC News, Fauci said the Trump administration’s response to the growing pandemic was significantly hampered by the Chinese government’s lack of openness during its initial spread across the country.
“We were still hearing from the Chinese that it was not transmitting efficiently from human to human,” Fauci said. “And then as the weeks went by, it became very clear that that was the case, and that there would really be problems.”
The Chinese government even banned US officials, Fauci said, from visiting the areas most affected by the deadly virus.
“They were not allowed to go there in real time and see what was happening,” he said, and that “was very puzzling to us.”
It was not until January, when the Chinese government finally released the scientific makeup of the virus, that Fauci realized the gravity of the situation.
“Okay,” he recalled thinking at the time. “All hands on deck.”
Tune into ABC Tuesday at 9 pm ET for the special report “20/20” “American Catastrophe: How Did We Get Here?”
Fauci has been battling infectious diseases for nearly four decades, but said COVID-19 has been his “worst nightmare.” She said that infectious diseases that spread easily tend to be “very weak” and rarely lethal, while diseases that cannot spread so widely tend to be the deadliest. But COVID-19 has not followed that paradigm.
“You have those two things that come together with what we’re dealing with now,” a deadly disease that “spreads efficiently,” creating “the perfect storm,” Fauci said. “When those things come together … it really is historical.”
He called on Americans across the country, no matter where they are, to follow “some fundamental principles.”
“The basics are not rocket science,” he said. “It is universal to wear masks, avoid crowds, close the bars, [maintain] physical distance [and] personal hygiene, washing hands. … You are definitely going to be able to change these things with some things as simple as that. ”
ABC News’ Ali Dukakis, Kaitlyn Folmer, and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
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