US surgeon general warns of ‘critical’ point: ‘We could be like Italy’

US Surgeon General Jerome Adams has warned that “there’s every chance” that the US “could be Italy” if people don’t follow basic public health measures to curb COVID-19 outbreak.

Adam made the remarks during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” on Monday, adding that the US is “at a critical inflection point”, The Hill reported.

“People — we are where Italy was two weeks ago in terms of our numbers,” he said on the show” he added.

Italy has seen the worst outbreak of COVID-19 outside of China, where the virus was first detected late last year.

On Sunday, the European country recorded 3,590 cases from the virus and 398 deaths in a 24-hour span — marking its largest one-day increase in such cases since the outbreak began.

“Do we want to go the direction of South Korea and really be aggressive and lower our mortality rates or do we want to go the direction of Italy?” he said. “And when you look at the projections there’s every chance that we could be Italy.”

Adams noted that it’s “going to be social distancing, it’s going to be people washing their hands” and other basic safety guidelines Americans take that will curb the spread of the outbreak.

When discussing the status of development for a vaccine for the virus, Adams said officials have seen progress and noted “tremendous innovation” from the private industry, but added that “what people need to know is a vaccine’s not going to save the day, at least this first go-round,” The Hill reported.

He also commented on the slow rollout of testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has gotten criticism in recent weeks.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the first case of the COVID-19 virus in the US on 21st January. Since then, the number of cases nationwide has hit 3,700. The US has been criticized for its testing per capita numbers, which have been shockingly low. US testing was further hampered by flawed kits distributed by the federal government in February, which gave some false results.
Adams further noted that he believes a turning point was reached last week “when the FDA approved a new rapid throughput test which will exponentially increase the amount of tests that can be run.”

When pressed about the recent guidelines issued by the CDC calling for the cancellation of gatherings of 50 or more people for the next two months, Adams said that these are “absolutely tough decisions.”

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction,” Adams said. “You close the schools, you may end up forcing the kids to stay at home with their grandparents who are at highest risk.”

“You close work and then people lose their jobs and they can’t put food on the table. So we’re always saying here is what we should do from a health point of view, here are the economic consequences, here are the social consequences,” he added. “But we’ve got the best people in the world who are working 20-22 hours a day, really leaning into this issue.”

He concluded that officials are hopeful that if the country takes more steps like China, which recently reported a decline in COVID-19 cases, and South Korea, then “maybe in about six to eight weeks we’ll get over the majority of the pain, we will have flattened the curve, and we can start to slowly get back to life as normal.