Former Food and Drug Administration head Dr. Scott Gottlieb said the states hardest hit by the latest coronavirus surge are “on the cusp of losing control.”
Ten states, most of them concentrated in the South and West, have recently seen new record-high, seven-day averages of new coronavirus cases. Those states are Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, and Texas.
“The question is ‘can we keep this from getting out of control.’ This is a virus that wants to infect a very large portion of the population,” Gottlieb said Thursday morning on CNBC. “They’re on the cusp of losing control of those outbreaks in certain parts of those states. Arizona, Houston, Austin, parts of Florida certainly look very concerning right now. … These are outbreaks. We’re seeing doubling times now falling under 10 days.”
Coronavirus cases are increasing about 20,000 daily in the United States.
Gottlieb stated that there is still time to get the outbreaks under control but worried that governments won’t take proper containment actions.
“[What] makes me more concerned is the political landscape and lack of political will to take mitigation steps,” he said.
