Fauci says US reopening could trigger outbreak 'you might not be able to control'

Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top public health expert, warned in Senate testimony on Tuesday that the official coronavirus death toll in the US is an undercount, and that “the consequences could be really serious” if America relaxes safeguards against Covid-19 too abruptly.

“My concern it that we will start to see little spikes that will turn into outbreaks,” Fauci said.

Fauci appeared before the Senate as Donald Trump declared that the US had “prevailed” in the struggle to stand up its testing program, and encouraged businesses and schools to reopen.

Fauci warned against reopening the country before local benchmarks, including robust testing and contact tracing, had been put in place. In most areas in the US, testing for asymptomatic people is rare, and contact tracing is extremely limited.

He said: “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you might not be able to control. Not only leading to some suffering and death, but it could even set you back on the road to get economic recovery.”

Fauci, 79, has led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and has become a trusted public figure.

In response to a question from the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Fauci said the official death toll of about 80,000 in the US was probably low.

“Most of us feel that the number of deaths are likely higher than that number,” he said.

In New York City in particular, he said: “There may have been people who died at home, who did have Covid, who were not counted as Covid because they never got to the hospital.”

As part of Trump’s urging American schools and businesses to reopen, the White House has set a target of having 100m vaccine doses by the autumn. Fauci dismissed that goal, saying neither a vaccine nor drug treatment would be available in time to facilitate the reopening of schools in the fall.

Fauci said: “In this case, the idea of having treatments available, or a vaccine, to facilitate re-entry would be something that would be a bit of a bridge too far. Even at the top speed we’re going, we don’t see a vaccine playing a role in the ability of individuals in going back to school this term.”

He warned against opening schools on the assumption that children are safe from the disease, noting the recent documentation of a strange inflammatory syndrome in some child cases.

Fauci said: “I think we better be very careful, if we are not cavalier, in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects.”

The hearing was an unprecedented experiment by the Senate, which conducted business via videoconference. It did not always go smoothly: Senator Rand Paul momentarily fell victim to noisy feedback and multiple senators had to repeat questions for the witnesses.

The health committee chair, Lamar Alexander, ran the meeting from his home in Tennessee, with a backdrop of heavy exposed timber beams and a large stone hearth, having self-isolated on news of a staffer testing positive. Sanders spoke from a home office with a poster for the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the background.

Senators in the room, about half wearing face coverings, were spaced 6ft apart from one another and from aides. Large bottles of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes were close at hand.

Fauci testified remotely, after placing himself in a form of quarantine over the weekend. He said he had come into contact with a White House staffer who tested positive for the coronavirus. A valet to the president and Mike Pence’s press spokeswoman have tested positive for the virus in recent days, as have senior military advisers.

On Monday afternoon, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, confirmed that Pence will “keep his distance” from Trump “for a few days”.

“I would just note that that’s his personal decision,” McEnany said, adding that how long Pence will continue to keep his distance will be up to him.

In the Senate hearing, Dr Stephen Hahn of the Food and Drug Administration and Dr Robert Redfield of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also testified remotely.