Dr. Anthony Fauci, a key member of the White House coronavirus task force, plans to tell the Senate health committee on Tuesday that the U.S. risks “needless suffering and death” if the country reopens too quickly amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the major message he wants to convey to the committee is the danger of trying to open the country prematurely.
“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to ‘Open America Again,’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country,” Dr. Fauci told The New York Times. “This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal.”
Dr. Fauci is testifying remotely along with Dr. Stephen Hahn, U.S. commissioner of Food and Drugs, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Adm. Brett Giroir, the coronavirus “testing czar.”
Dr. Fauci, Dr. Hahn and Dr. Redfield are all in some level of self-quarantine after a staffer for Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for the coronavirus last week.
The testimony comes as virtually all states, even particularly hard-hit spots like New York and Massachusetts, are moving toward relaxing some of their coronavirus-related restrictions.
