Not exactly encouraging...
Surgeon general says U.S. cases are at the point where Italy was 2 weeks ago
Mar 16, 2020 10:55 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. surgeon general said Monday that the number of coronavirus cases in the United States has reached the level that Italy recorded two weeks ago, a sign that infections are expected to rise in America as the government steps up testing and financial markets continue to fall.
“We are at a critical inflection point in this country, people. We are where Italy was two weeks ago in terms of our numbers,” U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams told Fox News. “When you look at the projections, there’s every chance that we could be Italy.”
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Adams said there will be 30 to 40 new testing sites running in 19 states that could each perform 2,000 to 4,000 tests a week. However, Brett Giroir, a senior health administration official, said community testing sites manned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and members of the U.S. public health service would be capable of testing 2,000 to 4,000 people each day, not every week. He said the federal government would begin deploying these sites on Monday.
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Asked whether restaurants and bars around the nation should close for the time being, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said he wanted to wait for the guidance to come but allowed, “That could be.”
Fauci said he would like to see more aggressive measures, such as a 14-day national shutdown. Still, Fauci said travel restrictions within the United States, such as to and from hard-hit Washington state and California, probably would not be needed anytime soon.
“The worst is yet ahead for us,” Fauci said. “It is how we respond to that challenge that is going to determine what the ultimate endpoint is going to be.”