Anthony Fauci calls 200,000 pandemic death toll 'sobering, and in some respects, stunning'
By: Chandelis Duster (CNN)
Why would 200,000 coronavirus deaths be stunning? The 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic killed 675,000 in a population of 103 million. That would translate to over 2 million deaths today.
We are relying upon the same government health guidelines that were put in place for the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic. We are using the same types of face masks. We are using the same types of soap. We are using the same types of disinfectants. We still isolating and quarantining those who are infected. The methods to control spread of the coronavirus are exactly the same as those used 100 years ago to control spread of the influenza virus.
The evidence suggests that these methods would be as effective as they were 100 years ago.
100 years ago there were women's suffrage marches, rallies, and protests. 100 years ago people were traveling to all parts of the country by train. 100 years ago elections were held in the midst of the pandemic. 100 years ago public gatherings were restricted by local governments.
We are doing exactly the same things today for the coronavirus pandemic that were done 100 years ago for the influenza pandemic. Why should we expect this time will be different?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said the US reaching 200,000 coronavirus deaths is "very sobering, and in some respects, stunning," while adding that Americans should trust medical experts despite at times conflicting signals from the highest levels of government.
"The idea of 200,000 deaths is really very sobering, and in some respects, stunning," the nation's top infectious doctor told CNN's Sanjay Gupta during the Citizen by CNN conference shortly before the US reached the grim milestone late Tuesday morning. "We do have within our capability -- even before we get a vaccine, which we will get reasonably soon -- we have the capability by doing things that we have been speaking about for so long, Sanjay, that could prevent the transmission, and by preventing transmission, ultimately preventing the morbidity and mortality that we see." He mentioned measures such as frequent hand washing and mask wearing.
"The fact is you've got to go with the scientific data," he said. "One of the things that the public needs to understand is that this is an evolving situation and the people who say, 'Well, how can I trust anybody because things change,' what changes is the fact that we are in an evolving outbreak. And the things that we did not know a few months ago allowed us to at the time use the scientific information to make recommendations that were appropriate at the time and because the data were telling us at the same time. As we learned more, things changed. It's appropriate to make changes in recommendations based on the additional knowledge that you know."Fauci said he is concerned about the country not having control of the virus' spread ahead of the winter season that could exacerbate it.
"And depending upon your own social situation, indoors for you or another person may mean poor ventilation, poor air flow. And difficulty getting the kind of removal of anything that would lead to spread," adding that he'd like to see the US go into the fall and winter months "at such a low level that when you have the inevitable cases, you can handle them."
"I don't want to really make this kind of a dark thing that 'oh, my goodness, it's inevitable that we are going to get into serious trouble,'" he continued. "We can't throw our hands up and say, 'It's hopeless, it's going to happen anyway.' That is unacceptable to take that approach. On the other hand, it's not acceptable to not realize that we are entering into a risk period and we've got to act accordingly as we enter into that risk period."
President Donald Trump had praised his administration's response to the pandemic on Monday, telling "Fox & Friends" that "we've done a phenomenal job" and giving himself an "A+" on how he has handled the virus.
Fauci, answering a question Tuesday from a viewer on what grade he would give Trump's pandemic response, said, "Take a look at the numbers and make up your own mind."
"I mean, you know, we don't need a sound bite from me. Take a look at the numbers," he said.
On Monday, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention abruptly reverted to its previous guidance about how coronavirus is transmitted, removing language about airborne transmission it had posted days earlier. The move added to confusion about the virus spurred by mixed messaging from the White House on preventative measures and mask wearing. Many doctors and researchers have also cautioned for months that the virus can be transmitted through small airborne viral particles.
Asked where people should get trusted information about the virus, Fauci said Tuesday, "they need to get it by following the scientific data and the scientific evidence."
"The fact is you've got to go with the scientific data," he said. "One of the things that the public needs to understand is that this is an evolving situation and the people who say, 'Well, how can I trust anybody because things change,' what changes is the fact that we are in an evolving outbreak. And the things that we did not know a few months ago allowed us to at the time use the scientific information to make recommendations that were appropriate at the time and because the data were telling us at the same time. As we learned more, things changed. It's appropriate to make changes in recommendations based on the additional knowledge that you know."
He also said one can assume "that some aspect of transmission can be and is by aerosol" and said "it doesn't change anything that we have been saying: It means wear your mask."
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Dr. Anthony Fauci has been recommending a 100 year old approach to controlling spread of the coronavirus. Why would that approach be any more effective than it was 100 years ago? Blaming the public won't make this time any different.
The biggest difference today verses 100 years ago. Mobility. International or otherwise.
Potential spread of such pandemics is much more geologically diverse and intense with the greater mobility today. One of the biggest likely causes of death in the Pandemic of 1918 was WW1 and more virulent strains that came out of the poor conditions related to trench warfare. Had that not happened the death toll likely would have been much lower.
Today the mobility from international air travel and local car/train/etc mobility is a much better delivery system than 100 years ago. Much better
COVID never leaves China and we don't have a pandemic.
Mark this on your calendar. I agree with you
Let's not make this a habit, eh?
If experience is a good teacher, I'm not too worried about that.
If the people of the United States were not mobile then how did the Spanish Flu spread across the country so quickly?
People travelled the world by train and steamship. People were just as mobile 100 years ago, they only travelled slower. The Mauretania was the equivalent of today's international airliner.
Yes, the American Expeditionary Force returned from Europe following the Armistice. Millions of people traveled between the United States and Europe.
It's a mistake to confuse mobility with speed of travel. Just because travel times are less today doesn't mean today's travelers are more mobile.
The coronavirus was brought to the United States by international travelers just as the Spanish Flu was brought to the United States. And the recommended methods to control spread of the Spanish Flu 100 years ago were exactly the same as today's recommendations to control spread of COVID.
Those recommendations and methods won't work any better or worse than they did 100 years ago.
I disagree. We can debate use of words but that's about it.
People didn't vacation aboard then like they do today. Not even close. I didn't leave my own state until i was 19 and going into the Corps. That was not that unusual where i grew up in the 60's and 70's.
Which brings up that we didn't travel within the country like they do today either. The highway system we have in the US today was a dream 100 years ago. In 1920 there were about 10 million vehicle registrations versus nearly 300 million today. That's a shitload more mobility or whatever word you want to call it..
The world was much more agrarian 100 years ago and therefore by definition, less mobile. And your comment about speed doesn't make much sense to me either. The faster people people travel, the faster the virus can spread. We are going much farther, much faster today than ever before. A much more effective delivery system than 100 years ago IMO.
Methods like wearing a mask, hand washing, and social distancing may be old methods, but they are also proven to work! That's why it's effective. And we see that with a reduction in cases where such methods are consistently used.
The public can be blamed for not following recommended and scientifically backed guidelines like wearing masks or social distancing. We've already seen surges in Covid cases due to that. Perhaps it's no so much blaming the public per se, but rather, peoples stupidity!
Or states that reopened too soon or allowed public gatherings like at bars and such, which are designed to promote social interaction, ect.
Those methods won't work any better or worse than they did 100 years ago. We have 100 year old evidence that can be followed.
And what does the 100 year evidence suggest? Today's recommendations and available methods are exactly the same as they were 100 years ago.
We have evidence. Why aren't we looking at that evidence?
We are and the evidence shows those prevention methods work if everyone adopts them. When you have a President in denial and hiding the truth and a third of the country who believe him claiming it's a hoax and refusing to abide by simple prevention methods you get 200,000 dead Americans.
We are following the same guidelines and using the same methods to control spread of the virus as were used 100 years ago. We are addressing the COVID pandemic exactly the same way the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic was addressed.
The mortality rate 100 years ago was about 655 per 100,000. So far, the mortality rate for the COVID pandemic is about 63 per 100,000. Regardless of what the President has done or not done, blaming the public for not following the exact same guidelines and methods used 100 years ago doesn't seem warranted.
Of course it won't be better or worse if the methods are the same. But the key is they are effective.
See previous statement.
Perhaps because people are irrational and/or hostile to science.
Those 675,000 deaths in 1918-1919 was over a one year period at least. We're only 6 months in to this COVID.
Also, we didn't have things like ventilators, defriballators, high tech gadgetry for monitoring patients, etc. so we should have gotten a handle on this a whole lot quicker than they did 100 years ago. Didn't have planes jetting from every corner of the world, either....
They didn;t have the high tech gadgetry. Bad sentence. I also spelled defriballator wrong
Which explains a much higher death toll then than there is now. 6 months into Covid and there has been over 31 million cases with nearly 1 million deaths worldwide. Imagine if we didn't have modern medicine and medical practices.
EXACTLY! That's where we should always get information from. Not from nonscientific sources, personal beliefs or opinions, or from people who have no idea what they're talking about. Unfortunately, there seems to be quite a hostility towards science right now.
You WISH!!! And what about those who refuse, and those who refuse to wear masks, and refuse to distance, because, after all, that would be contrary to American individual rights and freedoms.
America's numbers are as high as they are for more than one reason, such as Trump's ignoring, then downplaying it, the public's failure to follow strict measures as have been followed by those countries that have been much more successful (also due to refusal of State leaders to provide effective measures), but specifically what I said in my previous paragraph.
You can blame China for its existence, but you cannot blame China for America's astronomical numbers of infections and deaths, especially when other countries were able to be so much more successful in containing the virus.