On the heels of President Trump’s announcement that there are some tough times lying ahead for the United States, one of the coronavirus task force’s most prominent figures is giving us something to smile about.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the nation’s leading medical experts in the field of infectious disease, has been promoting the idea that we can “flatten the curve” with this coronavirus through social distancing. That is to say that we can prevent further spreading of Covid-19 by remaining at arm’s length from one another at all times, while avoiding crowds and unnecessary time public.
The idea is most easily recognizable as a graph that we’ve all seen a hundred times by now.
Dr. Fauci seems to think we’ve made some progress in this regard.
From an appearance on CNN Tuesday night.
JIM SCIUTTO: I know that New York has seen a decline in the rate of growth in new infections. What else are you seeing that give you some hope that the curve is being flattened somewhat?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: What happens is that it occurs in phases. If you look from day to day of the cases of new cases that require hospitalization, when you’re really going up exponentially, it increases from day to day. Once you start to level off, then you’re going to have less people that are going to be going into intensive care. And then later on, because it always lags, you’ll see a decrease in deaths.
What you’re starting to see right now is just the inklings — and I don’t want to put too much stock on it because you don’t want to get overconfident, you just want to keep pushing on what you’re doing — You’re starting to see that the daily increases are not in that steep incline, they’re starting to be able to possibly flatten out. Again, you look at it carefully and hope it’s going in the right direction, that’s what we really are trying to attain.
Fauci would go to stress, as many other medical professionals have already, that our work is far from over, and that the nation social distancing guidelines remain in place until at least April 30.
