Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, is suggesting some states failed to adhere to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) guidelines upon reopening.
Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Collins was asked why the United States is doing so poorly compared to the rest of the world in combating the coronavirus.
Collins acknowledged the nation did a “good job” in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut with bringing cases down.
He went on to explain how the rest of the nation did not follow CDC recommendations and are now experiencing the repercussions.
“Meanwhile the rest of the country, perhaps imagining this was just a New York problem, kind of went about their business, didn’t really pay that much attention to CDC’s recommendations about the phases necessary to open up safely and jumped over some of those hoops,” Collins said.
Watch his comments below:
WATCH: NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins says states thought COVID-19 was a “New York problem” and “didn’t really pay that much attention to CDC recommendations.”@nihdirector: States didn't follow "the phases necessary to reopening and jumped over some of those hoops." pic.twitter.com/MYbJsBwGZf
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) July 19, 2020
Collins noted how Americans began to congregate and did not wear masks.
According to Collins, there are more than 70,000 new cases almost every day and the number of hospitalizations is very close to being as high as it was in April.
He went on to call for unity among Americans amid the pandemic.
“We Americans are pretty good at rising to a crisis. We got one now, let’s see what we can do together,” Collins said.
As of Sunday evening, there are more than 3.7 million coronavirus cases in the United States alone and over 140,000 deaths.
On Friday, the number of coronavirus cases rose by at least 70,674 and the number of deaths rose by at least 912, as IJR previously reported.
Infections are rising in 41 of 50 states and deaths are rising in 19 states.
Six states recorded a record number of hospitalizations including Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Montana, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
