Name: Top health official on US response to coronavirus pandemic
Uploaded: 2020-03-23T23:32:11.000Z
Duration: 8 min 19 s
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We're joined now by N I H and Corona Virus Task Force official Dr Anthony Fauci.

To-infinitive

Thanks so much for joining us, Dr Good to be with you.

Testing system is currently failing and that we're not set up for universal testing?

You know, I don't think there's anyone that's responsible.

What I was referring to is that the system, as it was originally designed, was really designed for a patient to Dr Relationship in which the CDC would make a test, give it to the public health authorities in a particular state, a local a section, and that if someone needed a test that would get an individual test what it was not designed for was the broad book more more, more global, as it were screening where you could not only just get a test for an individual, but you could go and essentially blanket the country to find out how many people are actually infected.

That was something that was originally worked really very well for the systems that were in place then.

Right now, we're making very rapid steps to going towards I would hope in the next week or so, we would be able to get the commercial individuals involved commercial companies so that you could then more two more easily get a test.

But when I said it failed, I didn't mean it failed in the sense of what it was originally designed for what it was originally designed for worked very well.

We need to get out there and get much more testing.

And I believe that will be available relatively soon.

So you're optimistic that that will be able to fix this?

I mean, we have to admit that in the beginning we didn't have what we needed, but now we will fix it.

And so, at this point, who needs to advocate in order to build the capacity for the universal virus virus testing?

I mean, the HHS on the undersecretaries are the CDC, the FDA.

They're all working right now to get this done.

And from what I heard at the task force meeting, literally just a few minutes ago.

It's gonna be within the next week or two.

Why were the diagnostic tests approved by the World Health Organization not used?

But like I mentioned early on, the test that we had was one that had been working and working well for the system that was involved.

At least nine lawmakers who were president Mar a Lago are now in self quarantine due to their interaction with the Brazilian president's press secretary, who is tested positively for Corona virus.

Should President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence me doing the same thing?

I think we're gonna obviously leave that up to the to the White House and personal physician of the president and the vice president.

So I won't comment that I'm not very familiar with the details of that interaction, and that's why I would leave that to the president and the vice president's White House position.

You have praised President Trump's new travel restrictions.

Do you think that they go far enough and should they also apply to Americans coming from Europe like that infected lawyer who caused a spread in New Rochelle, New York Well, let's talk about travel restrictions for a moment.

The early on decision to essentially stop the travel of put very significant travel restrictions on China really saved us on awful lot of hurt, as it were, because we had some seeding of individuals from China, which led to then secondary infections.

But there were relatively few considering what would have happened.

You know, in contrast, the Europeans did not do that.

And unfortunately, our colleagues in Italy is suffering for that because they're having a very bad situation in Italy.

The more recent travel restrictions were based on scientific data.

If you look at the number of new infections that occurring globally about 70% the majority of them ah, coming from that European Union group there that we talked about last night.

If you look at the states in the United States that have new cases, the majority of them are coming from that region.

So I thought it was even though it's, ah lot of difficulty and it was a difficult decision.

I think it was the prudent and right decision to make, because when you want to stop the spread a virus, you do it two ways.

You prevent anything from without coming in.

And even as important, if not more importantly, you try to contain and mitigate the spread in the country.

And that's why we're doing those kinds of things that I called social.

This distancing where you don't go where there are crowds, you tell a work where you can.

You don't go on trips with crowded planes.

And if you are an individual who's elderly with chronic conditions, you absolutely don't go on a cruise ship.

And President Trump has said that Cove in 19 will disappear.

That quote one day it's like a miracle it will disappear.

Well, you know, it depends on what you mean by disappear.

We are still in for some significant infection's going on right now.

The curve is going like this, and if this acts like any other infection, if you don't do something about it and you do it really quickly, it's going to do that.

And then ultimately, as all outbreaks, it will ultimately go down But in this curve, there's a lot of suffering and death.

What we want to do and hopefully will be successful, is to blunt that curb.

So instead of going way up, it goes like this was still gonna have people getting sick and people will die.

But it will be much less than if it just went up like that.

Eso a colleague of mine was just saying, You know, we should all just be prepared that we're gonna get it.

Do you think that that's the appropriate attitude?

No, I don't think it's the appropriate attitude.

The appropriate attitude is to try and do something about it.

And I just outlined the two ways from without in try and block it and within do whatever you can to distance people from each other so they don't spread.

You can blunt that curve to just throw up your hands and say we're not gonna do anything about it is not appropriate and not good.

Public health doctors are restricting at this point who they contest.

Can you explain who can get a test if a person goes to a physician and says they are sick.

The previous restrictions that we need to make clear are no longer there.

The previous restriction was you have to have either come into contact with someone who is a known Corona virus patient or had some interaction with someone who was a contact.

You go to your physician, you say I feel sick.

I may have some symptoms, associate ID, and you get tested.

What can you tell us about the treatment trials?

Well, there are no medications that we know are helping because, as you said correctly, there's still treatment trials.

And what's going on here in the United States is testing a couple of already developed drugs to see if they have activity against the Corona virus.

We've got to be careful that we say we have drugs.

You have to you have to give the drug to hundreds of people and compare it to a situation where you just give them standard of care and after a period of time.

If that drug works, you make it available to people.

We do not know if these drugs work anything that you just want to say to the American people that you feel like we need to know.

We have to be prepared that we will get Maur infections The way we can respond to it and mitigated is to do the kind of distancing socially.

In fact, if you go to Corona virus dot gov or CDC dot gov, you could take a look at what the kinds of things you should be doing.

Just click on a computer and you'll see them.