Reopening of US could probably start next month, says America's top doctor

America’s reopening could probably start at least in some ways next month, a top member of the White House Task Force on coronavirus said on Sunday as the US battles one of the worst public health crises in a century.

For weeks now, over 95 per cent of 330 million American population are under stay-at-home order and a national emergency has been put in place as the United States has become the hotspot of COVID-19.

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More than 20,000 Americans have lost their lives battling coronavirus and over 5.3 lakh have been tested positive. New York, the global financial capital, is the epicenter of this crisis with more than 1.8 lakh positive cases and 8,650 deaths.

President Donald Trump is mulling reopening the country, where in more than 17 million people have lost their job, given that in some parts of the country like New York, there are signs of reduction in new COVID-19 patients and states like Washington and California have successfully flattened the curve through strict enforcement of social distancing measure.

With American economy in teeters, President Trump has described this as one of the biggest decisions of his life that he has ever had to make.

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“I think it (reopening the country) could probably start, at least in some ways, maybe next month. And, again it's so difficult to make those kinds of predictions, because they always get thrown back at you if it doesn't happen,” Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health told CNN.

During the interview, Dr Fauci, who is a member of the White House Task Force on coronavirus, hinted that the reopening of the country could be in phases and spread out region by region depending on the ground situation.

“We are hoping that, at the end of the month, we could look around and say, OK, is there any element here that we can safely and cautiously start pulling back on? If so, do it. If not, then just continue to hunker down. And that's what, at least for me standpoint of the public health aspect, that we look at,” he said.

“Other decisions are going to have to be made at the level of the president and the governors about what they are going to do with all of the information they get. The only thing I and my colleagues in public health and medicine can do is to give a projection of the kinds of things that may or may not happen when you make these steps,” he noted.

Responding to a question, Dr Fauci acknowledged that things could have been difficult in the US had everything been shut down from day one.

“It's very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say, that if you had a process that was ongoing, and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that.

“But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you're right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then,” Dr Fauci said.

The top American doctor hoped that it will be safe in November for voters to physically go to vote at the polls.

“I hope so… I can't guarantee it. I believe that if we have a good, measured way of rolling into this, steps towards normality, that we hope, by the time we get to November, that we will be able to do it in a way which is the standard way,” Dr Fauci said.

“However -- and I don't want to be the pessimistic person -- there is always the possibility, as that -- as we get into next fall, and the beginning of early winter, that we could see a rebound.

“And hopefully, what we have gone through now, and the capability that we have for much, much better testing capability, much, much better sera surveillance capability, and the ability to respond with countermeasures, with drugs that work, that it will be an entirely different ball game,” he added.