Dr. Anthony Fauci is weighing in with his take on President Donald Trump’s decision to extend the administration’s shutdown guidelines and practice of social distancing.
Fauci sat down for Monday’s interview with CNN’s John Berman where he was asked about Trump’s social distance extension. Fauci offered an explanation about the current coronavirus pattern in regards to peak and turnaround.
Based on the current pattern and timeline, Fauci revealed there was no way the virus would reach its peak and begin to decline within the initial two-week time window.
According to Fauci, the federal government would have been letting up at a time when they should be “pressing your foot on the pedal instead of on the brakes.”
Fauci went on to explain the ideology behind flattening the curve.
He noted that if “we prematurely pulled back, we would only form an acceleration or a rebound of something which would put you behind where you were before.”
Fauci went on to admit that his team “argued strongly” to convince the president to refrain from withdrawing the guidelines too soon.
“That’s the reason why we argued strongly with the president that he not withdraw those guidelines after 15 days, but that he extend them. And he did listen,” Fauci said.
See Fauci’s full interview below:
Dr. Anthony Fauci says the coronavirus task force “argued strongly with the President” to extend federal social distancing guidelines “and he did listen.”https://t.co/O8SG3jMVVM pic.twitter.com/9FC1MiSW2Z
— CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish (@CNNThisMorning) March 30, 2020
Berman moved on to the projection models Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx presented to Trump, which suggested approximately 100,000 to 200,000 people could die from the coronavirus — even with the current distancing guidelines in place.
Fauci noted that he and Brix “made it very clear to him that if we pulled back on what we were doing and didn’t extend them, there would be more avoidable suffering and avoidable death. So it’s a pretty clear decision on his part.”
According to Fauci, the president quickly understood why the extension was the right decision.
“We showed him the data, he looked at the data and he got it right away. It was a pretty clear picture. Dr. Debbie Birx and I went in together in the Oval Office and leaned over the desk and said, ‘Here are the data, take a look.’ He looked at them, he understood them and he just shook his head and said, ‘I guess we got to do it.'”
Fauci concluded by saying he and Brix agreed that extending the guidelines was the right choice.
As of Monday morning, there were more than 143,000 positive coronavirus cases in the United States.
