Fauci Says He’s ‘Not Quite Sure’ Why Covid Cases Are Dropping in Texas After Mitigation Restrictions Were Lifted
Dr. Anthony Fauci said the reason Covid-19 cases in Texas were declining even after the state lifted restrictions might be “confusing.”
“There was a lot of concern last month when Texas effectively opened up, dropped all of those restrictions and said, it’s back to life and if you go to Texas, as you know, it looks like 2019,” Willie Geist noted in a Tuesday interview with Fauci on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “The restaurants and bars are full and open. The ballparks are full. And yet, we’ve seen cases and hospitalizations since then continue to tick downward. So what do you make of that, as all of us look around and try to consider how safe it is to get back to normal life?”
“Yeah, you know, it can be confusing,” Fauci replied. “Because you may see a lag and a delay, because often, you have to wait a few weeks before you see the effect of what you’re doing right now.
“There are a lot of things that go into that,” he added. “When you say that they’ve had a lot of the activity … outside, like ball games, I’m not really quite sure. It could be they’re doing things outdoor. It’s very difficult to one on one compare that. You just have to see in the long range. I hope they continue to tick down. If they do, that would be great. But there’s always the concern, when you pull back on methods, particularly on things like indoor dining and bars that are crowded, you can see a delay, and then all of a sudden tick right back up. We’ve been fooled before by situations where people begin to open back up, nothing happens, and all of a sudden, several weeks later, things start exploding on you. So we’ve got to be careful we don’t prematurely judge that.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) lifted a mask mandate in his state with an executive order on March 2. He allowed restaurants and other businesses to reopen at full capacity on the same day. Covid-19 cases in the state have nonetheless declined, from a weekly high of more than 22,000 in January to fewer than 3,000 in the seven days ending April 4.
Watch above via MSNBC.
