Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a news conference with the coronavirus task force at the White House on November 19. Susan Walsh/AP
Leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Sunday that the worst was yet to come with the coronavirus pandemic, with the United States potentially facing a “surge superimposed upon the surge that we’re already in” after the Thanksgiving holidays.
Fauci’s bleak prediction comes at the end of a month in which more than 4.1 million Americans were infected with COVID-19 and more than 25,000 died. As of Sunday, more than 13.3 million Americans have been infected by the coronavirus and more than 265,000 have died, in a pandemic that has disproportionately afflicted Black, Latino, and Native American communities.
“I don’t want to frighten people, except to say it is not too late to do something about this,” Fauci said on NBC’s Meet the Press, urging that anyone who traveled over the holidays continue to wear masks and practice physically distancing from others to help curtail the surge. Fauci also noted that a first wave of vaccinations could reach priority individuals before the end of December. Referring to what is now “a very difficult time,” Fauci added, “We’re going to have to do the kinds of restrictions of things we would have liked to have done, particularly in this holiday season, because we’re entering into what’s really a precarious situation.”
TODAY: Dr. Anthony Fauci tells @chucktodd that "it is not too late" to stop the spread of Covid.
Dr. Fauci: "We might see a surge super-imposed on that surge that we're already in." pic.twitter.com/MAj2g9r1MA
— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) November 29, 2020
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump did his first post-election television interview on Sunday and said next to nothing about the raging pandemic. Instead, he continued to focus on denying the reality of his election loss and pushing blatant lies to Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, who said nothing at all to challenge or correct him. Bartiromo sat by as Trump argued without any evidence that a “rigged election” had been stolen from him and suggested that the Justice Department and FBI were “missing in action” and somehow involved in a contrived plot to steal the election from him. Trump’s baseless, conspiratorial monologue came on a weekend when his election loss was yet again confirmed on multiple fronts, with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossing out the latest lawsuit in that state and recounts in Wisconsin adding to Biden’s victory there.
Trump did make one comment about the pandemic on Sunday, taking personal credit for creating coronavirus vaccines.
“I came up with vaccines,” Trump says
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 29, 2020
