On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield will both testify before Congress. Dr. Fauci has been a major voice throughout the pandemic, as he is the nation’s top infectious diseases expert. Dr. Redfield has also shouldered much responsibility for the US response to the virus. Dr. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of the FDA, as well as Department of Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir will also testify.
Tuesday’s hearing comes as the nation continues to grapple with the novel coronavirus pandemic. There are growing fears in the US that the pandemic could grow to become an endemic in the US without a vaccine to slow its spread. Over 120,000 people have already died from the disease in the US. Economists are projecting a global recession due to the virus, even as some businesses work to reopen their doors.
Many small business owners have been searching “get my business on google search” to try to help drum up business. Employees wearing masks, no-contact shopping and other protocols to slow the spread of the virus have become the norm. However, in many cities, new spikes of the virus make it hard to say whether these efforts are helping.
On Tuesday, Dr. Fauci is expected to testify on the importance of a vaccine in stopping the virus. His prepared opening statement reads “a safe and effective vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 will be essential to stopping the spread of infection, reducing rates of morbidity and mortality, and preventing future outbreaks.”
This is consistent with other epidemiologists, who see the US’s stubbornly-high COVID-19 numbers as a troubling sign of things to come. It will likely take as long as eight-to-eighteen months for a vaccine to be available to the public. That leaves a long stretch of time with the public struggling against the effects of the pandemic.
During a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, President Donald Trump raised eyebrows when he suggested the US should be doing less testing. “You know testing is a double-edged sword,” Trump stated to an arena that was roughly one-third full. “Here’s the bad part … when you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people; you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down please.”
Meanwhile, top experts have suggested that the US should be doing much more testing to identify growing hot spots of the virus. Many epidemiologists agree that stopping the spread of the virus will require more testing, not less. Slowing testing down will likely only lead to an unnecessary increase in case numbers and deaths.
