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Fauci warns: “We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this"
From CNN's Andrea Kane
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate hearing in Washington, DC, on June 30. Al Drago/AFP/Getty ImagesDr. Anthony Fauci, the top US expert on infectious disease and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, warned on Monday that the country was facing a "serious situation" in part due to reopening too quickly.
"We were averaging about 20,000 new cases a day," he told National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins during a livestreamed talk.
"And then a series of circumstances associated with various states and cities trying to open up, in the sense of getting back to some form of normality, has led to a situation where we now have record breaking cases. Two days ago it was at 57,500.”
“So within a period of a week and a half, we've almost doubled the number of cases," he said. "We are still knee-deep in the first wave of this."
Even the term "wave" is misleading because the number of cases has never dipped back down, only rose to new and alarming levels, he said.
Places like the European Union saw its cases go up, then come back down to a baseline, marking the possible end of a first wave, he said. "We went up, never came down to baseline, and now it's surging back up. So it's a serious situation that we have to address immediately.”
In Brazil, 620 people died of coronavirus in one day, as bars and restaurants reopen
From CNN's Rodrigo Pedroso in São Paulo
A hairdresser works on a customer after reopening amid the easing of quarantine measures on July 6, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Miguel Schincariol/Getty ImagesOn Monday, Brazil reported 620 new deaths from coronavirus, raising the country's death toll to 65,487.
Brazil's health ministry also recorded 20,229 new cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the country's total to 1,623,284 cases.
The new figures come as cities around the country start to reopen.
Rio de Janeiro, where more than 10,000 people have died of coronavirus, opened its bars and restaurants over the weekend.
In Sao Paulo, bars, restaurants, and beauty salons also reopened with restrictions on Monday after been closed since March 24. Dining establishments will now have seating areas after previously being restricted to delivery and takeout services.
But new rules and restrictions apply: for example, Sao Paulo bars and restaurants can only operate for 6 hours a day and with a maximum occupancy of 40% capacity.
Brazil continues to follow the US in leading the world’s highest numbers of infections and deaths from the coronavirus.
