Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday that “this is going to be a bad week” for Americans due to the coronavirus crisis.
“Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan began the conversation by asking what Americans should be expecting. “We heard from the president that there will be a lot of death in the coming weeks. Dr. Birx said it’s not the time to go to the grocery store or the pharmacy. What should Americans be preparing for?” she asked. (RELATED: Dr. Fauci Says Trump Took Coronavirus Seriously ‘From The Beginning’)
Fauci responded and agreed that the upcoming week is going to be bad, “Well, this is going to be a bad week, Margaret, unfortunately. If you look at the projection of the curves, of the kinetics of the curve. We’re going to continue to see an escalation.”
He also offered some potential good news, saying that “we should hope that within a week, may be a little bit more, we’ll start to see a flattening out of the curve and coming down.”
He also said that the “mitigation” actions Americans have been taking are “absolutely key” to successfully containing this outbreak.
Brennan then asked what it means when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says “New York is not yet at the apex” and asked “what happens on the other side of that apex?”
Fauci clarified that “what Governor Cuomo was saying is we haven’t yet reached that peak, and when you do, we’ll see a flattening and come down. So where we are right now is really approaching that apex, and that’s why what he’s saying and what we’re saying is that this next week is going to look bad because we’re still not yet at that apex. And I think within a week, eight days, or nine days or so, we hopefully are going to see that turn around.