Dr. Scott Gottlieb, the former head of the Food and Drug Administration, is not convinced Americans cannot stop the spread of COVID-19.
āThere are some people who donāt think you can really fully stop this virus. I disagree with that. I think you look at parts of the country, look at New York, look at my home state of Connecticut,ā Gottlieb said during his appearance on āFace the Nation.ā
He added, āThereās a lot of infection here. These states are pressed right now, but youāre not seeing the widespread rates of transfer that youāre seeing in other parts of the country that havenāt taken more aggressive steps.ā
Gottlieb turned his attention to the economic effects of the pandemic and argued the economy in areas of the nation where they did not take as aggressive measures did not do better than those that did.
āWhatās really keeping consumers home is the virus. Whyā¦why people arenāt going out to eat is they donāt want to go into restaurants and risk getting infected. Itās not the mandates and the state action thatās keeping people home. Itās the infection,ā Gottlieb said.
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White House task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx voiced her concern Sunday about the spike in the number of COVID-19 cases, as IJR previously reported.
āIf you look at the second wave, going into the Memorial Day weekend, we had less than 25,000 cases a day. We had only 30,000 inpatients in the hospital, and we had way less mortality, way under a thousand. Weāre entering this post-Thanksgiving surge with three, four, and 10 times as much disease across the country,ā Birx said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci painted a bleak picture of what the holiday season could like, but he is hopeful Americans can still do something about it, as IJR previously reported.
āSo what we expect, unfortunately, as we go through the next couple of weeks into December, we might see a surge super-imposed on that surge that weāre already in,ā Fauci said. āIt is not too late at all for us to do something about this.ā