Thread by @FiveThirtyEight

NEW: In a wide-ranging interview, Dr. Anthony Fauci told FiveThirtyEight’s PODCAST-19 that, while New York and other cities are doing well, the U.S. overall, compared to other countries, is not doing great. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

Fauci said the surge of cases in the U.S. is the result of both certain citizens ignoring social distancing recommendations and certain states skipping over guidelines. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

Fauci said Florida, for example, jumped over a couple of checkpoints in reopening. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

“Now you know that when you shut down you dramatically diminish the spread,” Fauci said he’s sure the U.S. could have reacted better when the virus first appeared. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

Fauci said it’s “understandable” that the EU has banned American travelers — their infection rate is very low.

But, he said, “we need to get back to some sort of normality.”

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Fauci told FiveThirtyEight that partisanship has made it more difficult to suppress COVID-19. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

“Historically, when you don’t have unanimity in an approach to something, you’re not as effective in how you handle it.” 

-Dr. Anthony Fauci

Fauci said he’s skeptical that we’ll be able to keep the pandemic under control without a vaccine. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

“This virus, to our dismay, is spectacularly efficient in transmitting from person to person. So that makes me skeptical whether we would get permanent, sustained control of this without having a vaccine.”

-Dr. Anthony Fauci

On how a growing anti-vaccine movement will affect what will happen once a vaccine is discovered, Fauci said it underscores the need to take this seriously, get it right and pay attention to any suggestion of negative impact. 53eig.ht/322sfFS

“We got to get it right. We really do. Because if we don’t, it might have a real negative impact in the long range, in the long term, on how people approach and respond to the need for vaccination.”

-Dr. Anthony Fauci

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