Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said the United States is still in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic and that states seeing a resurgence in cases should think about imposing new lockdown orders.
“We are not out of this at all. We’re all very concerned,” Adm. Giroir said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
He did say the percentage of tests coming back positive has started to level off a bit and that the U.S. is much better prepared in terms of protective equipment supplies compared to a few months ago.
But he said he expects hospitalizations and deaths to start going up in the coming weeks.
“If you have more cases, more hospitalizations, we do expect to see that over the next two or three weeks before this turns around,” he said. “It’s starting to turn now, but we won’t reap the benefits for a few weeks.”
He also said states like Florida, Arizona, and Texas that are seeing a new resurgence of cases to consider imposing new lockdowns to try to slow the spread.
“Everything should be on the table,” he said.
He said closing bars and limiting restaurant capacity are two key steps for states with high rates of transmission right now.
“This is not out of control, but it requires a lot of effort,” he said. “You really got to stop the bars. You have got to decrease restaurant capacity. You have got to physically distance.”
“We have to have people wearing a mask in public. It’s absolutely essential. And you have got to use good hand hygiene,” he said.
There are now more than 3.2 million positive cases and more than 134,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S. among the country’s population of more than 300 million people.
