Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the United States should not fall into a “false complacency” about coronavirus death rates declining.
During a Tuesday press conference with Sen. Doug Jones, an Alabama Democrat, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a core member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned that citizens shouldn’t feel relaxed about the coronavirus even though death rates have fallen.
“It’s a false narrative to take comfort in a lower rate of death,” he said. “There’s so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus. Don’t get yourself into a false complacency.”
Fauci earlier said that the rise in coronavirus cases in states such as Florida and Texas was largely due to younger people, who are less likely to get seriously ill or die, testing positive for the coronavirus. He noted that younger people engaging in “risky behavior” are contributing to worsening the pandemic even if they don’t exhibit symptoms themselves.
“By allowing yourself to get infected because of risky behavior, you are part of the propagation of the outbreak. So you are part of the problem. Because you could, even though you feel fine, you could inadvertently and innocently infect someone else, who then inadvertently and innocently infects someone who is really vulnerable,” he said.
There are nearly 11.7 million reported cases of the coronavirus across the globe, with more than 539,900 deaths. In the U.S., more than 2.9 million people have tested positive for the coronavirus, with the nation’s death toll totaling more than 130,000. More than 36 million people in the U.S. have been tested for COVID-19, according to the latest reading of the Johns Hopkins University tracker.
