Dr Fauci reveals he hasn’t spoken to Trump for two weeks despite US coronavirus cases rising

Infectious disease expert also suggested that some states reopened too early

Dr Anthony Fauci has revealed that he hasn’t had a meeting with president Donald Trump about the coronavirus pandemic, for two weeks, despite cases rising across the US.

Dr Fauci, who is the chief infectious disease expert leading the US response to the pandemic, told NPR on Tuesday that he last spoke to the president, “not last week but the week before.”

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases added: “I spoke with him when we made the presentation to explain to him our vaccine development effort. So, it was two weeks ago.”

Last month, in an interview with medical site, STAT News, Dr Fauci confirmed that the coronavirus taskforce, which was created to tackle the pandemic, was meeting less than it did earlier in the year.

“I was meeting with him four times a week back, a month or so ago,” Dr Fauci said.

“But as you probably noticed, that the task force meetings have not occurred as often lately. And certainly my meetings with the president have been dramatically decreased,” he added.

Later on in Dr Fauci’s interview on NPR, he claimed that some states did not continue adhering to social distancing measures as well as they could, when they started easing lockdown.

He added that groups of people not wearing masks are clearly “increasing the risk and likely explaining some of the upticks that you’re seeing.”

States across the US, started reopening at the end of April, but in the last few weeks, several states have reported an increase in the number of hospitalisations because of the virus.

Texas is one state that has recently seen a rise in Covid-19 cases, and recorded its record number of hospitalisations from coronavirus on Sunday, with 2,287 people admitted to hospital due to the virus.

The number topped the previous highest total, which was set the day before, following a week where the record was broken six times.

Additionally, Florida announced on Tuesday, that bars and restaurants will be forced to close again, after a rise in cases, one week after the state allowed them to reopen with capacity restrictions.

Dr Fauci suggested to NPR that some states started to reopen earlier than they should have, and said: “Clearly there were states who, left to their own decision about that, went ahead and opened to a varying degree.

“Maybe even — I wouldn’t say too soon — but certainly before they got to the benchmarks that they needed to get (to).”

According to a tracking project hosted by Johns Hopkins University, there are now more than 2.1 million people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the US. The death toll has reached at least 438,435.