COVID update: Fauci warns that progress in the fight against coronavirus seems to have stalled

WASHINGTON – At the White House COVID response team briefing on Friday, top U.S. health officials warned that recent progress in declining the number of cases seems to have stalled and that no they should reduce restrictions until the U.S. baseline is much lower.

The numbers have plummeted since early January, but the seven-day average is still hovering around 70,000.

This rivals last year’s summer peak and threatens to push the US in the wrong direction.

“Certainly 70,000 are not there. Not even close,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert. “You need to reduce the positivity of the test while increasing the vaccine.”

Fauci said he wants to see where the numbers go next week approximately before advising people to set aside restrictions.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, agreed.

“The latest data suggests that these falls could be stagnant, potentially leveled and (still) very high,” he said. “From CDC we consider this a very worrying change of trajectory.”

“We may end up with the virus, but the virus is not done to us. We cannot feel comfortable or give a false sense of security that the worst of the pandemic is behind us,” he said.

Fauci says next week will be more or less crucial.

“We don’t want people to always be looking at the dark side of things, but we want to be realistic,” he said. “So we have to look closely at what’s going on next week with these numbers, before we start to understand the need to relax with certain restrictions. So we just have to look at it closely and be prepared to react to it. ‘according to what’s really going on. ”