But Fauci added, if you are not taking precautions, “You are part of the problem rather than the solution.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, delivered some blunt messages to the public during an online video interview Thursday evening with actor Matthew McConaughey.
There are three key reasons why many island nations and Asian countries have managed to control coronavirus better than the U.S., Fauci said. In the absence of a vaccine, Fauci told McConaughey that social distancing, regular hand washing and face masks are the only alternatives as “herd immunity” — where those who are immune protect the most vulnerable in the population — is not feasible for coronavirus. That requires a very high level of population immunity for COVID-19, and for the virus to not mutate. Fauci also said that aiming for 100% herd immunity, instead of maintaining safety procedures and waiting for a vaccine in early 2021, would have dire consequences. “If everyone contracted it, a lot of people are going to die,” he said. “You’re talking about a substantial portion of the population. The death toll would be enormous and totally unacceptable.” Instead, he outlined three key steps: “ ‘The quicker you pull together and get it down, the quicker you get back to normal. We’re all in this together.’ ” — Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases 1. Outdoors is better than indoors: In an interview on Instagram FB, -0.02%, McConaughey asked Fauci if certain smaller island nations have more successfully beaten back coronavirus because residents spend more time outdoors. Fauci replied, “It’s conceivable that that’s the case.” Fauci added that outdoors is far preferable for sports, restaurants and holding school classes. In response to a question about the politicization of the virus, he compared the pandemic to other challenging times in U.S. history. “Our country has been through very, very difficult situations. We’ve been through a Depression, we’ve been through a World War. We pulled together through 9/11.” But, he added, if you are not taking precautions, “You are part of the problem rather than the solution.” 2. Shut down decisively to stop outbreaks: And asked why so many Asian countries have had relative success in controlling outbreaks of COVID-19, Fauci said, “When they shut down, they shut down like, ‘Bang!’ When we shut down, it was never in the level that the Asian countries did.” Fauci said the stop/start and disparate approaches to shutting down in the U.S. has not worked out as well. Fauci also said it’s not a simple choice between public health and economic health. “The quicker you pull together and get it down, the quicker you get back to normal. We’re all in this together. Unless we do this together, we’re not going to get this under control,” he said. “To think that you can ignore the biologic and get the economy back, it’s not going to happen. You have got to do both.” 3. Contract tracing helps stop community transmission. Fauci said it’s crucial to create the conditions to allow authorities to conduct contact tracing, and prevent community transmission. He used sports as an example. “If you’re in a red zone where the level of virus is so high, sure you can try to do sports normally, but the chances are you’re going to get people infected,” he said. Young people who play or attend sports events are more likely to become “super spreaders” and behave as if they don’t have the virus and be the source of community transmissions, Fauci said. That makes it almost impossible to control an outbreak. “Many of them are going to be young, so they’re not going to get sick. They go out into the community.”Countries like South Korea, New Zealand and China — where the virus is believed to have originated in a food market in Wuhan late last year — have had more success in beating back COVID-19. Earlier this week, for example, New Zealand moved fast to lock down Auckland after the return of COVID after 102 days of reporting no new infections. “Act as if you have COVID, and as though people around you have COVID,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern told a press conference. The island nation moved quickly and decisively to respond to the pandemic, banning non-New Zealand nationals traveling from China before there were any cases in the country, and those nationals who arrived from China were forced to quarantine for 14 days. COVID-19 has killed at least 760,633 people worldwide, and the U.S. ranks 10th in the world for deaths per 100,000 people , Johns Hopkins University says. In sharp contrast, South Korea has had 0.59 COVID-related deaths per 100,000 people, Singapore reported just 0.48 COVID-related deaths per 100,000 people, while New Zealand had a rate of 0.45. As of Friday, the U.S., which has a population of roughly 330 million, has reported 5,262,116 cases of coronavirus and 167,369 deaths. South Korea, a nation of 51 million, reported 14,873 coronavirus cases, and 305 deaths. Singapore, which has a population of 5.8 million, had 55,497 cases and 27 deaths. New Zealand, an island nation of 4.9 million, had 1,602 cases and 22 deaths. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.12%, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.01% and the Nasdaq Composite COMP, -0.21% were mostly flat Friday as investors awaited progress between the Democrats and Republicans on round two of a fiscal stimulus, and progress on a possible vaccine. Worldwide, the virus has infected at least 20,981,939 people. A plethora of companies are currently working on COVID-19 vaccines: AstraZeneca AZN, -1.09% in combination with Oxford University, BioNTech SE BNTX, -3.32% and partner Pfizer PFE, -0.28%, GlaxoSmithKline GSK, -1.55%, Johnson & Johnson JNJ, +0.16%, Merck & Co. MERK, -1.51%, Moderna MRNA, +1.94% and Sanofi SAN, -1.32%, among others.
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