Win McNamee/Getty ImagesCautioning against reopening too soon due to risk of “suffering and death,” Doctor Anthony Fauci testified before the Senate regarding the reopening of the country and when life may return to normal.
Fauci, who is quarantining at his home due to coming into contact with a staffer who tested positive for the virus, testified remotely in a video conference.
Also joining Fauci were Stephen Hahn, head of the Food and Drug Administration; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Robert Redfield and Brett Giroir, who is part of a national effort on developing COVID-19 tests and is an assistant secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services.
When discussing reopening the nation and resuming classes in school, Fauci cautioned, “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control” and said that opening too soon would cause “suffering and death” that can “even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery.”
When Senator Rand Paul — who came down with the virus — challenged Dr. Fauci and touted that Congress knows what’s best for the economy, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases countered that reopening the country should be based on the science and not the stock market.
Giroir also brought up the necessity for more testing, saying that the U.S. will be capable of carrying out 40 to 50 million tests per month.
It’s been widely supported by health officials that, in order to safely reopen the country, more testing needs to be done and contact tracing should be increased.
COVID-19 has infected over 4.2 million people worldwide and killed nearly 300,000 people — according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
In the U.S., the amount of confirmed cases stands at nearly 1.4 million with a death toll surpassing 82,000.
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