Some states with great success battling coronavirus and others seeing a “disturbing surge of infections” make up the “mixed bag” that represents the current pandemic national response, Dr. Anthony Fauci said.
“If you look at how we’ve been hit, we’ve been hit badly,” Fauci said before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Tuesday.
Fauci noted New York as a state that has done well in bringing down infections while other states are now seeing a surge, which Fauci said was “very troublesome.”
“Right now the next couple of weeks are going to be critical in addressing those surges we are seeing in Florida, in Texas, in Arizona and in other states,” said Fauci.
He said, “It’s a mixed bag. Some good, and some now we have a problem with.”
Fauci said he is cautiously optimistic there will be a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year or early 2021, but was sure to add that there is never a guarantee.
“I would be very disappointed if we jumped to a conclusion before we knew that a vaccine was truly safe and truly effective because I wouldn’t want to the perpetual ambiguity of not knowing if it is truly safe and truly effective,” Fauci said.
There are also no treatments specifically developed for the disease, although the antiviral drug remdesivir has been shown to help some patients, as well as a steroid called dexamethasone.
Fauci and other top health officials said they have not been asked to slow down testing for coronavirus, a controversial issue after President Trump said last weekend that he had asked them to do just that because it was uncovering too many infections.
“I know for sure, to my knowledge, that none of us have been told to slow down on testing. That just is a fact. In fact, we will be doing more testing,” Fauci said.
As the fall and winter months approach, Fauci and other health officials in the hearing expressed concern about the upcoming flu season that could coincide with more coronavirus infections.
Getting a flu vaccine will be critically important, Fauci said, “so that you can at least take off the table, for many people, one of the confounding issues we are going to have this winter of two respiratory borne infections simultaneously confounding each other.”
The Centers for Disease Control developed a new laboratory test that checks for three viruses at the same time — two types of influenza viruses and coronavirus.
Testing for all three viruses simultaneously will allow public health laboratories to continue surveillance for influenza while testing for COVID-19.
Fauci said in his testimony, “While it remains unclear how long the pandemic will last, COVID-19 activity will likely continue for some time.”
He noted we are still in the first wave of the pandemic and testing will continue to ramp up in hopes of achieving good surveillance and containment of current and future cases.
The U.S. has tested more than 27 million people, with about 2.3 million – or 8.4% — testing positive.
“As we go into the fall we likely will have the capability of doing 40-50 million tests a month,” Fauci said.
Herald wire services contributed to this report.
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Anthony Fauci said national coronavirus response a ‘mixed bag,’ some ‘disturbing’ surges - Boston Herald
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