Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Wednesday encouraged local and state governments seeing a surge in coronavirus cases to consider locking down once again.
“Any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down. It’s not for me to say because each state is different,” Dr. Fauci told the Wall Street Journal in a new podcast.
“We are all in this together,” he added. “I’ve been trying to stress that by getting infected or not really caring if you’re getting infected, you will inadvertently infect someone. … So to say that it’s benign is not true.”
The United States passed the 3 million coronavirus cases Wednesday, with more than 131,000 deaths. The nation also saw a new single-day record spike with 60,000 new cases on Tuesday.
Several states, including Texas, California, Florida and Arizona, have seen a dramatic uptick in cases and hospitalization.
Some of those states have begun pausing or reversing their reopening policies, though Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said Wednesday he would not move to force businesses to close again.
President Trump directly disagreed with Dr. Fauci, who warned the U.S. generally was still in the thick of the pandemic earlier this week.
“I think we are in a good place,” the president told Gray TV’s Greta Van Susteren. “I disagree with him.”
“I think we are going to be in two, three, four weeks, by the time we next speak, I think we are going to be in very good shape,” the president added.
• David Sherfiniski contributed to this report.
