US health adviser confirms earlier action 'would have saved lives'
Top US health adviser Dr Anthony Fauci confirmed a report on Sunday that President Trump had rebuffed recommendations from officials to implement social distancing measures to combat Covid-19.
Fauci who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared to confirm a report published by the New York Times last week that claimed that US officials had warned the US President of potential consequences and advised him to lock down the country, advice which he did not take.
Fauci also said that “nobody is going to deny” that if action had been taken earlier in the country it potentially “would have saved lives”.
Asked on CNN’s State of the Union why the administration did not act when he and other officials advised, Fauci said: “You know … as I have said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes, it’s not…It is what it is. We are where we are right now.”
Talking about the shutdown, Fauci said: “But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you’re right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”
The US issued distancing guidelines on 16 March.
The comments come as the US number of cases of the disease rises to 530,000 and the deaths reach almost 21,000 people. Officials are predicting a death toll of 60,000 people by August.