‘We can prevent this.’ Fauci now says a second US coronavirus wave is ‘not inevitable’
A second coronavirus wave in the United States can be prevented, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday in an apparent reversal of comments he made last month.
Fauci, the top infectious disease expert for the White House, said in late April a second wave of coronavirus may be unavoidable this fall or winter, McClatchy News reported. He has now offered some optimism there may not be a second wave, after all.
“We often talk about the possibility of a second wave, or of an outbreak when you’re reopening,” Fauci said Wednesday on CNN. “We don’t have to accept that as an inevitability. And particularly when people start thinking about the fall, I want people to appreciate that it could happen but it is not inevitable.”
As of Wednesday, the U.S. has more than 1.6 million confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 99,000 people have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Fauci talked about ways Americans can prevent a second wave from happening.
“If we do the kinds of things that we’re putting in place now, to have the workforce, the system, and the will to do all the kinds of things that are the clear and effective identification, isolation and contact tracing, we can prevent this second wave that we’re talking about, if we do it correctly,” he said.
He also warned Americans to be careful about not reverting back to their pre-coronavirus ways, which he said is “inviting there to be an issue.”
Worldwide, experts say there could be a second peak and not a second wave of the virus, which has infected more than 5.6 million people around the globe.
Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Program, said the disease “can jump at any time,” according to CNBC.
“We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now it is going to keep going down and we get a number of months to get ready for a second wave,” he said. “We may get a second peak in this wave.”
This story was originally published May 27, 2020 at 9:53 AM with the headline "‘We can prevent this.’ Fauci now says a second US coronavirus wave is ‘not inevitable’."