Coronavirus testing czar: Lockdowns in hotspots "should be on the table"
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The Trump administration's coronavirus testing coordinator Adm. Brett Giroir said on ABC's "This Week" that "everything" — including the "stringent lockdowns" that many governors implemented in March and April — should be "on the table" in states where new infections are skyrocketing.
Why it matters: President Trump said in June that the U.S. "won't be closing down the country again" — a view shared by many Republicans who believe that the economic damage caused by stay-at-home orders was too great to justify a second round of lockdowns.
The big picture: Seven times over the last two weeks, the U.S. has set a new record for the most cases in a single day. Cases are increasing in 33 states, and several of those states are seeing such staggering increases that they may soon overwhelm their hospitals.
- Giroir stressed that every American should wear a mask when they go out in public, and that states where cases are surging need to close restaurants and bars as soon as possible.
- He also said that he expects hospitalizations and deaths to increase, since they are a lagging indicator to new infections.
- "We do expect and are planning for and are surging people and everything else — but we expect hospitalizations to go up," Giroir said. "At the peak in April, we were at about 85,000. Right now, we're at 63,000. But we do expect those to go up."
Go deeper: Americans would rather return to lockdown if coronavirus cases spike
