Covid: Dr Fauci urges Americans to keep the faith but warns 200,000 more could die in next four months alone

On Friday, the US experienced a record 177,000 new daily cases, the fourth straight day it set an all-time record

Dr Anthony Fauci has admitted the coronavirus figures are grim for a country where cases have surged in recent weeks, driven by people gathering inside as the winter approaches, businesses and schools re-opening, and growing laxity around mask-wearing and social distancing.

In an interview on Sunday with CNN, host Jake Tapper cited a research paper from the University of Washington that 439,000 Americans could be dead from Covid by 1 March, and Dr Fauci said that predictive model could very well be accurate.

“Yes, it is possible, Jake,” Dr Fauci told an incredulous Mr Tapper, who had pointed out that such a figure would mean 200,000 more Americans could die in just the next four months.

On Friday, the US experienced a record 177,000 new daily cases, the fourth straight day it set an all-time record.

Many states and cities throughout the US could begin seeing another round of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders as coronavirus cases in the country continue soaring to unprecedented heights, Dr Fauci, the top American infectious disease expert, has said.

“I think that we likely will, Jake, if we don't turn around this surge,” Dr Fauci said on Sunday when asked about the possibility of sweeping — but locally ordered — lockdown measures.

“We're not going to get a national lockdown. I think that's very clear. But I think what we're going to start seeing in the local levels — be they governors or mayors or people at the local level — will do, as you said, very surgical type of restrictions, which are the functional equivalent of a local lockdown. But we're not going to have a national lockdown,” he said.

Political observers have speculated for months that Donald Trump might try to fire Dr Fauci on his way out the door from the White House, but President-elect Joe Biden has said he will keep him on for his administration.

Even after Mr Biden takes office, though, the president-elect does not plan to institute a nationwide lockdown, his top scientific advisers have said.

“We’re not in a place where we’re saying shut the whole country down,” Dr Vivek Murthy, a former US surgeon general, now on Mr Biden’s coronavirus advisory team, told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” 

“Right now the way we should be thinking about this is more like a series of restrictions that we dial up or down depending on how bad a spread is taking place in a specific region,” Dr Murthy added.

While Congress has not gotten its act together to deliver more coronavirus aid — held up by Senate Republicans who want a “targeted” bill and House Democrats who want a comprehensive $2.2trn package — the Trump administration has also been unable to roll out a robust national testing and tracing strategy to surgically attack the pandemic.

In the absence of that leadership from the top, Dr Fauci urged Americans to all pull in the same direction on public health fundamentals such as wearing masks, social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings.

“Everybody’s got to do it,” Dr Fauci said.

“There's no excuse not to do that right now, because we know that can turn things around,” he said.

Coronavirus cases in the US spiked in June and July but plateaued and abated somewhat in August and September. They climbed again in October and have been skyrocketing so far in November.

Dr Fauci urged Americans not to give up on trying to contain the virus, saying there is “light at the end of the tunnel” with news of two successful Covid vaccines preparing to be mass-produced and distributed by roughly the middle of next year.

“That should, I believe, motivate people to just say, we're going to double down and do this uniformly. Those are the tools we have right now. And they do work. We can get this to plateau and come down.”