I can’t believe that it’s now July, and
we’re still talking about the need for a
national strategy around testing.
When we look at other countries that have
been successful in suppressing the level of
COVID-19, they have one thing in common, which
is that they have a national coordinated strategy.
They don’t just let different regions and
different states and cities figure it out
on their own.
They don’t have different areas compete
against one another for things like masks
and other PPE.
And I also cannot believe that we are at this
point again.
Back in March, you and I talked about how
doctors and nurses on the frontlines don’t
have enough masks and gowns and are begging
their friends over social media in order to
try to get that extra mask so that they don’t
get infected from their patients.
I can’t believe that we’re facing the
same situation once again.
And this all comes from not having a national
strategy, and also, unfortunately, having
this really confused and mixed messaging coming
out from this White House, that instead of
using science and evidence to make their decisions,
they’re making it based on ideology and
partisanship.
And that has — politics has no role in a
public health response.
Can you talk about the significance of what’s
happening in Florida and in the world, the
largest day single spike not only in Florida,
but in the world yesterday?
Yeah.
As a country right now, we are in a worse
position than we were back in March.
And I feel terrible saying it, but this is
the truth.
Back in March, we saw the number of cases
skyrocketing, but it was focused on what epicenter
in the New York area.
Now we have multiple epicenters of outbreaks
— in Florida, Texas, California.
Now we’re seeing the Carolinas, Tennessee,
Alabama, Georgia.
I mean, there are many areas that are raging
out of control.
And unlike back in March, we don’t have
a shelter-in-place order.
We have no political appetite, as we just
heard, for anything even approaching, even
requesting people to stay at home, avoiding
indoor gatherings, while we’re having everyone
require masks.
And I fear that at this point we are not even
seeing the peak of this epidemic, and we have
a lot more pain and suffering and death coming
our way.
And against this backdrop, we’re seeing
these same governors and elected officials
ask for schools to reopen.
And they’re using, I think, actually, faulty
arguments in so doing.
The evidence is still out, and we don’t
know the full evidence, about whether children
can be just as effective vectors for transmissions
as adults do.
We do know that children tend to get much
less sick than adults, although some children
do get very ill, and some children do die.
And the studies that are currently being done,
we’re looking at examples from other countries.
Other countries have been able to successfully
reopen schools, but here’s why.
They’ve been able to crush the curve.
They didn’t just bend the curve; they crushed
the curve.
They reduced the level of infection to virtually
zero.
And at the same time, they were able to ramp
up testing and really have a national strategy
and clear communication.
So, yes, they have been able to reopen schools
safely, although even in other countries there
have been outbreaks around schools, too.
The single most important thing, again, that
we can do in order to reopen schools in the
fall is to suppress the level of virus right
now, in the summer.
And I’m afraid that we are not doing that
consistently across the country, by a long
stretch.
