Coronavirus: Donald Trump’s health experts warn of another wave of death if US reopens too fast

Donald Trump’s health experts warn of more ‘suffering and death’ if the US economy reopens too fast.

The Trump administration’s health experts have warned of another wave of “suffering and death’’ that will set back hopes of an economic recovery if US society is reopened too fast.

The sombre warnings about the ongoing threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic contrasted sharply with the more upbeat assessment given the previous day by Donald Trump.

In testimony to a Senate health committee the country’s leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci warned of a “serious risk’’ of a second outbreak if states tried to open up their economies before meeting benchmarks such as sustained falls in infection rates.

“My concern that if some areas — cities, states or what have you — jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up, without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently, my concern is we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks,” Dr Fauci said in testimony given via video.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control, which in fact, paradoxically, will set you back, not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” he said.

Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases speaks remotely during a virtual Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington.

His warning was echoed by Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who told the committee “We are not out of the woods yet. We need to stay vigilant with social distancing. It remains an imperative.”

Health experts have been alarmed by some US states moving to reopen their economies despite continued high coronavirus infection and death rates.

But Mr Trump has encouraged states to resume economic activity as quickly as they reasonably can, saying the economic pain of the shutdown, which has claimed 33 million jobs, cannot be tolerated any longer.

Unemployment in the US rocketed to 14.7 per cent in April and is set to top 20 per cent in May as social distancing and stay-at-home orders led to the cratering of the world’s largest economy.

“They’re not going to stand for it. They want our country open. I want our country open too. I want it open safely, but I want it open,’’ Mr Trump said.

“You look at drug addiction, you look at suicides, you look at some of the things that are taking place, people are dying that way too. You could make the case it’s in even greater numbers,’’ he said

Mr Trump said the numbers of coronavirus cases were “coming down very rapidly’’ compared to last last month.

The US has more than double the death toll of any other country from coronavirus, with more than 82,000 dead from at least 1.4 million cases.

Between 1500 and 2000 people a day are dying although the numbers are down slightly from their peak around two weeks ago, largely because of reduced infections and deaths in the virus epicentre of New York.

The hearing saw the four key witnesses, Dr Fauci, Dr Redfield, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn and President Trump’s coronavirus testing czar, Brett Giroir all appear via video for safety reasons.

They spoke to Senators spaced far apart in the committee room, some with masks on, as well as several who joined in via video.

The officials stressed the importance of greater testing as the key to safely reopening the economy.

Mr Trump said this week he would spend another $US11 billion on federal support for widespread testing amid criticism that the White House has not done enough to facilitate testing across the country.

The US has lifted testing rates to around 400,000 a day, but this is still far short of the one to three million daily tests that health experts say need to be performed to give people the confidence to return to work and society.

“It’s the ability and the capability of responding to those cases with good identification, isolation and contact tracing [that] will determine whether you can continue to go forward as you try to reopen America,” Dr Fauci said.

(Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia)