‘It’s within our power’ to avoid projected deaths, Fauci says, while research suggests simply exhaling can spread coronavirus
April 2, 2020 / By Jason Hanna and Christina Maxouris, CNN
(CNN) – The nation’s top infectious disease expert stressed Thursday the US can still defy alarming projections of coronavirus deaths with aggressive measures — even as scientists warn the White House that simple exhaling may be enough to spread the virus.
Models had showed that the US death toll could be at least 100,000 with aggressive social distancing, White House experts said earlier, and as high as 2.2 million without them.
But, “it’s within our power to modify those numbers,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told “CBS This Morning” on Thursday.
“If you really push hard on mitigation … you can modify the model,” Fauci said. “We need to push and push with the mitigation to try and get that number lower than the projected number.
“As of Thursday morning, more than 216,700 people in the US have been infected and at least 5,148 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. Over 920 of those deaths were reported Wednesday — the highest number reported in the country since the beginning of the outbreak.
