Covid-19 rapidly becoming America’s leading cause of death

Top US infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci gave a blunt assessment of how the United States is handling the coronavirus pandemic compared to other countries. Some cities, he said, were following the guidelines and controlling their outbreaks. "But as a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great," Fauci told the FiveThirtyEight podcast. "I mean, we're just not."

Part of that has to do with how states, cities, and their populations have responded to the pandemic, he said, whether that was opening up too quickly or ignoring social distancing guidelines and calls to wear masks....

"Not to be hyperbolic about it — it really is the perfect storm and [an] infectious disease and public health person's worst nightmare," Fauci said at an event hosted by the news website The Hill, citing a report by CNN. "It's a spectacularly transmissible virus. The efficiency with which this transmits is really striking."

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"And I think what we've seen unfortunately, is that in some of the Southern states, the states have not really followed those guidelines in some respects, and jumped over the benchmarks, and the points that needed to be checkpoints," he said. "We've got to do better."