Dr. Fauci on Extending Coronavirus Guidelines: Trump Just Shook His Head and Said ‘I Guess We’ve Gotta Do It’

Dr. Anthony Fauci elaborated on what it took to convince President Donald Trump to keep America on lockdown for another month to halt the spread of the coronavirus.

Fauci spoke to CNN’s John Berman on Monday, where they focused on how Trump has dropped his plan to re-open the country by Easter in order to keep social distancing policies in effect until April 30. As Fauci explained how the coronavirus numbers would begin to curb, he said that “if we prematurely pulled back, we would only form an acceleration or a rebound of something which would put you behind where you were before.”

“That’s the reason why we argued strongly with the president that he not withdraw those guidelines after 15 days, but that he extend them. And he did listen.” Fauci said.

From there, Berman asked Fauci about the models he showed Trump, which projected that between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans could die from COVID 19 even with current guidelines. Fauci said he and Dr. Deborah Birx “made it very clear to him that if we pull back on what we were doing and didn’t extend them, there would be more avoidable suffering and avoidable death. So it’s pretty clear decision on his part.”

“We showed him the data, he looked at the data and he got it right away,” Fauci said. “Dr. Debbie Birx and I went in together and leaned over the desk and said ‘Here is the data, take a look.’ He looked at them, he understood them and he just shook his head and said ‘I guess we got to do it.'”

Fauci continued by calling the data conclusions “patently obvious,” and that it “probably would hurt the economy” if Trump tried to start the country back up again while the virus remains a public threat.

“To us, there was no question what the right choice was,” he said.

Watch above, via CNN.

Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com