The testimony of the nation’s top infectious disease expert countered President Trump’s upbeat assessment, describing a “mixed bag” of some bright spots amid worrying trends and unknowns.
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, told members of Congress on Tuesday that the nation does not yet have the coronavirus under control and is seeing a “disturbing surge” of infections in some parts of the country, as Americans ignore social distancing guidelines and states reopen without adequate plans for testing and tracing the contacts of those who get sick.
Dr. Fauci’s assessment, delivered during a lengthy hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, painted a much grimmer picture of the coronavirus threat than the one given by President Trump, who claimed last week that the virus that had infected more than two million Americans and killed more than 120,000 would just “fade away.”
“The virus is not going to disappear,” Dr. Fauci said.
To the contrary, he said the next two weeks would be critical to controlling the spread of the virus, and he warned of a dangerous situation looming this winter, when the regular flu season will intersect with the coronavirus, producing “two respiratory-borne infections simultaneously confounding each other.”
Dr. Fauci also delivered a stern message to young people, saying they could endanger others by ignoring the coronavirus threat. And after mass protests for racial justice that have drawn huge crowds and a campaign rally that Mr. Trump held in Tulsa, Okla., despite public health warnings, he gently suggested that Americans needed to do a better job of taking precautions to reduce the virus’s spread.
“Plan A: Don’t go in a crowd,” he said. “Plan B: If you do, make sure you wear a mask.”
Dr. Fauci’s testimony, and the testimonies of three other doctors who have helped lead the government’s coronavirus response, cast a dark cloud over the sunny accounts offered by the president as he has portrayed the United States as a nation bouncing back from the brink.
