White House COVID-19 task force official Dr. Anthony Fauci will warn lawmakers of the dire consequences of reopening the country too early during his hearing with the Senate Health Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Tuesday.
“The major message that I wish to convey to the Senate HLP committee tomorrow is the danger of trying to open the country prematurely,” Fauci told the New York Times on Monday.
“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines to ‘Open America Again,’ then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country,” the doctor continued. “This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal.”
Fauci will testify with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Robert Redfield, and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Stephen Hahn. All three, having been exposed to COVID-19, are self-quarantining and will call into the hearing, as will the committee chair himself, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN).
