May 12, 2020

“There Is a Real Risk That You Will Trigger an Outbreak”: Fauci Warns States Against Reopening Too Soon

Kevin Dietsch/POOL/CNP/Zuma

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In recent weeks, Dr. Anthony Fauci has served as a quiet dissenting voice to President Trump’s calls for states to reopen their economies despite the threat of resurgences in coronavirus cases. On Tuesday, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases heightened his warning, telling a Senate committee that if states open too soon, “there is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control.”

More than 40 states have eased stay-at-home orders to various degrees, allowing their economies to partially reopen, even as case counts surge in meatpacking plants, nursing homes, and prisons. Governors are anxious to let their constituents get back to work, but, according to Fauci, reopening states now could cause adverse economic effects in the long run.

A new outbreak “paradoxically will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to trying to get economic recovery,” Fauci said during questioning by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Penn.). “It would almost turn the clock back, rather than going forward.”

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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