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Anthony Fauci, one of the nation's top infectious disease specialists, warned U.S. senators Tuesday that bypassing government guidelines and prematurely opening parts of the country could lead to new coronavirus spikes and deaths.
"My concern is that if states or cities or regions, in their attempt to get back to some form of normalcy, disregard the checkpoints that we put in our guidelines, there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you will not be able to control,” Fauci told members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee.
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Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said a premature reopening of businesses would “not only set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to economic recovery.”
The White House issued reopening guidelines in April that, in part, called for states to begin phased reopening after the number of documented new COVID-19 cases or positive tests dropped for 14 days.
Both Fauci and Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said that the virus is not yet under total control. “It's important to emphasize that we're not out of the woods yet,” Redfield said. “We need to stay vigilant with social distancing. It remains an imperative."
The HELP committee coronavirus hearing was the second in the past week. All four government witnesses testified remotely, and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) chaired the session from his home state. Most of the senators in the Capitol Hill hearing room were wearing masks.
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