WASHINGTON (AP) – The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert issued a blunt warning Tuesday that cities and states could “turn back the clock” and see more COVID-19 deaths and economic damage alike if they lift coronavirus stay-at-home orders too fast — a sharp contrast as President Donald Trump pushes to right a free-falling economy.
“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” Dr. Anthony Fauci warned a Senate committee and the nation as more than two dozen states have begun to lift their lockdowns as a first step toward economic recovery.
The advice from Fauci and other key government officials – delivered by dramatic, sometimes awkward teleconference – was at odds with a president who urges on protests of state-ordered restraints and insists that “day after day, we’re making tremendous strides.”
Trump, whose reelection depends to a substantial degree on the economy, talks up his administration’s record with the virus daily.
Underscoring the seriousness of the pandemic that has reached Congress and the White House, Fauci and other experts testified from their homes. Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander chaired the hearing from the study in his cabin in Tennessee, although several committee members attended in person in an eerily empty Capitol Hill chamber, masked and sitting 6 feet apart.