Fauci calls coronavirus situation in the U.S. ‘significant and serious’
At a virtual conference on Friday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. is “significant and serious” because of community spread.
Video Transcript
- Maybe Doctor Fauci, back to you. Ambassador Birx raised this issue of pool testing strategies as an important component of the next phase of the response. I wonder if you could talk to that as a public health approach to COVID control.
ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, it could be a very important component, Chris. It really is going to depend upon how much penetrates of infection is in the community, because in certain times, you have so much, it doesn't work. That's the point. So what you really need is to get a good idea in general of where you are and then apply that.
You know, there are different models that Deb and I, mostly Deb, are working on about trying to figure out what is the best statistical approach towards the relationship between what's in the community and the benefit of doing pooled. Pool five, pool 10, pool more, it's complicated, but it does play a role.
And I'm sure it's going to have an important impact on what we do, because as Dr. Brix, Ambassador Brix, has mentioned, the situation that we're facing in the United States is significant and serious in that we have community spread in areas where many of these individuals are without symptoms. That is complicating our task.
