Dr. Fauci: ‘Terribly Painful Months’ Are Coming

by Kate Seamons for Newser

If you’re looking for reassuring words regarding the pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci isn’t offering many.  In comments to the New York Times on Friday, he expressed his opinion that “December, January, and early February are going to be terribly painful months.”

He attributed that prediction to the steepness of the case-count curve. “It’s almost an exponential curve,” he explained. “When you have an exponential curve up like that, by the time it peaks and then comes ultimately down, the duration of the surge is much longer.”

The Times provides context: “Epidemiologists dread exponential growth because cases can quickly double, then double again.” But Fauci wasn’t all doom and gloom, saying the “spectacular results of the vaccines” are sources of real hope. Elsewhere on the coronavirus front:

• CNN reports White House Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx shared a similarly gloomy outlook. “This is faster. It’s broader. And what worries me, it could be longer.” To wit, Friday saw 195,500 new infections, a count CNN contrasts with the summer surge, which at its peak hit just north of 77,000 cases in a single day in July.
• Singapore and Hong Kong were set to kick off an “air travel bubble” on Sunday designed to boost tourism between those two cities by allowing travelers who test negative for COVID before and upon arrival to sidestep a quarantine. The AP reports it has been delayed at least two weeks due to a rise in cases.
• The AP reports numbers are up in South Korea as well, describing the 386 new cases as part of “a resurgence that could force authorities to reimpose stronger social distancing restrictions after easing them in October to spur a faltering economy.”

(Read more coronavirus stories.)

Edited via Newser.

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