A healthcare worker administers a coronavirus test to a patient at the Lee Davis Community Resource Center on June 25, 2020 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Octavio Jones/Getty Images)
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert says that states seeing major increases in COVID-19 infections may need to start considering another lockdown.
In an interview with a Wall Street Journal podcast, Fauci addressed the issue of lockdowns, saying “any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down. It’s not for me to say, because each state is different.”
During the interview, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also said that while some states opened too fast, in others, social distancing guidelines were not followed properly.
Florida, which has seen a major increase in COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, passed another grim milestone Thursday when officials reported 120 new deaths from the virus, the highest one-day jump yet. The state reported nearly 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday.
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The U.S. currently has more than 3 million cases of coronavirus, more than any other nation in the world. At least 132,000 Americans have died since the beginning of the pandemic.