President s page because it was spreading dangerous misinformation about coronavirus. Joining us now, dr. Anthony fauci, director of the National Institute of allergy and infectious diseases. Dr. Fauci, thanks so much for getting up this morning and being with us. Its always a pleasure to speak with you. Great to have you back on new day. We reported this new warning from dr. Deborah birx, about nine cities and the Central Valley of california. What do you see there that is raising concern . Yes, what dr. Birx was talking about is that when you look at the number of percentage of the tests that you do are positive, its referred to as percent positive, its a clear indication that you are getting an uptick in cases, which inevitably, as weve seen in the other than states, leads to surges and then you get hospitalizations and then you get deaths. So its a pretty good predictor, usually before people become aware of it, its that indicator that maybe a fraction or two or a single percentage point creeps up in the percent positive of your test and weve seen that in the Southern States as predictors. So what dr. Birx is saying is now is the time to accelerate the fundamental preventative measures that we all talk about, masks, social distancing, avoiding crowds, outdoors greater than indoors, washing hands, et cetera. Those kind of simple things can actually prevent that uptick from becoming a surge. So she was warning the states and the cities to be careful, because this is a predictor of trouble ahead. A predictor of trouble ahead. You have said that if we dont all band together and work and collectively do the things we need to do, then the virus, you just told sanjay yesterday, will smolder and smolder and smolder. What do you mean by that . Well, for example, if you look at the cities and states that are doing things right, if you have a segment of society, and what weve seen of late, that particularly young people, who understand blably and innocently feel they are really vulnerable to this. They can get infected and they look at the statistics and the statistics say, the chances of your getting seriously ill compared to an elderly or someone who has an underlying condition is very low. So you would almost see a natural situation of thinking incorrectly, well, im in a vacuum, so if i get infected, the chances are im not going to have any problem. Thats not the case. Because by getting infected, you are propagating the outbreak. And even though it may not impact you in a negative way, the chances are youre going to infect someone who will infect someone who then has an underlying condition or is elderly and can really get into trouble. So you may be thinking that youre not having a negative impact. So by saying smoldering, i mean, unless everybody pulls together and gets the level way down of a base line, well continue to see these kind of increases that dr. Birx was talking about in several of those cities. Thats what i mean by smoldering. Youve got to get that base line down. And everybody on this group, everybody on the team of american citizens need to pull together. Because were all in this together. Lets talk about that baseline. I think thats really interesting. I know you cant see the chart that im about to put up on the screen, but you know it by heart and ill describe it to you. This is the daily deaths in the United States compared to europe, compared to south korea, compared to germany and what we will see when weapon put this up is that in these other countries and regions, the number of daily deaths went all the way down, approaching zero. Very, very minimal. The United States, we stalled and started creeping back up again. Youre talking about that base line. Why . Why did that happen . There are a number of reasons theres a number of reasons and its complicated. So we didnt do things in a uniform way. Where when we shut down, when you shut down, if you look at the visits to grocery stores, the visits to parks, the visits to wherever indicating that people are not as shut down as we think they are. Theres no doubt, the data shows, you see europe, italy, goes down. You see we do this. We had a situation where we never really put out those kinds of surges. We went way up, and when things got bad, people saw there were problems there, so they started to act better. But they went down to a 20,000 person per day and it lingered at 20,000. 20,000. And then when we started to open up the economy, which was the right thing to do, the way we did it was really not uniform. There was some states that did it prematurely. And there were some that tried to do it right, but the people in the state didnt Pay Attention. So what you saw as we began to open in the states that we know so well, florida, texas, arizona, california, it started to creep up. 40,000, 50,000, 60,000, even 70,000. So when you have a high baseline to start with and you open up in a way that isnt prudent in the sense of being carefully doing the guidelines, youll see them go up. Thats exactly what happened. So some people are celebrating. Look, whats happening in arizona and potentially in florida and texas is promising, but nationally speaking, were down from 70,000 cases a day to 50. You say even 20,000 isnt enough nationally. What is the number of cases a day where you can start to maybe think about doing more things . Well, you know, i think, john, you can start thinking about doing more things now, as long as, as you do them and thats the appoint thpoint that misunderstanding, john, where some people think, you either need to shut down completely or some people think, let it rip. Do anything you want. No, you can proceed to open up the country and get the economy back even when you have situations that we have now, as long as everybody does the five or six fundamental things they mentioned. So weve got to get away from that all or none phenomenon is not. We can carefully proceed. We saw in arizona, which was a good example, they went up and they started to really clamp down and do things right. And the cases came right down. We can do that throughout those areas that are surging. So we will be able to get that baseline down to a level of a thousand or two rather than 20,000. I want to ask and i dont want want you to weigh in on issues surrounding the election, but i want to talk about the timing of the election, which is the first week of november. Where do you see the pandemic and the level of cases in the country by then . John, its up to us. And i believe in the data we see in the United States and other states and counties that have done it correctly, that if we Pay Attention to the fundamental tenants of Infection Control and diminution of transmission, we could be way down in november. It is entirely conceivable. It isnt inevitable that we need to be way up there as we get towards election. And i feel that very strongly, if we do things correctly and we start right now to do that. Everyone, all states, cities, have to pull together for that. A couple of very quick questions, if i can. Number one, people always ask me, what is the science on being reinfected . What are you seeing now in terms of people who have had coronavirus, potentially being reinfected. What do we know for sure . Well, we dont know for sure at all that that occurs, john. Theres some anecdotal, individual outliers that say that individuals were infected. They cleared the virus and then they had a syndrome or maybe even had lingering virus. We dont know yet whether that occurs. And thats something that were looking at right now in multiple studies, including one were doing at the, in ih, to see if that occurs. In terms of science and studies, this does raise another question, and i dont want to relitigate hydroxychloroquine. But we had dr. Harvey rich from yale on monday and he suggested what you have been saying, saying that randomcontrolled trials, placebocontrolled trials, you say theyre the Gold Standards. He says, thats not so. We shouldnt be so reliant on them when determining the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine. Why do you feel so strongly about those trials . Well, because it is the Gold Standard. You have to compare your intervention with something. Because the medical literature and experience is full of situations of anecdotal red carpet specktive cohotter studies that have proven to be wrong. Agreeing with me is virtually every science that is competent in Clinical Trials that will say the randomized placebocontrolled trial is in fact the Gold Standard so i would respectfully totally disagree with him. You said something to sanjay yesterday, which was concerning to me, concerning to a lot of americans, which is that you and your family have been receiving threats. Death threats, even. Why do you think that is . You know, theres so much divisiveness right now in this country, john. I cant explain it, except to say the kinds of things that you see in society. We have a lot of outlier people that do things that are almost inexorable. They push back against science in a way that get translated into threats to me, my daughter, my wife, it makes you shake your head and wonder about some elements in society. Cant agree with that more. Alisyn camerota, my coanchor, has some important questions for you. Dr. Fauci, great to see you again. Alisyn here. Hi, al sn. Hi. I feel like john didnt get to the burning question that america has for you, and did you hear that brad was nominated for an emmy for playing you . Yes, i did. What a surreal world were living in, alisyn. I mean, i hope he wins hes great actor. Hes one of my favorite actors, so i really do hope he wins. Have you spoken to him since he played you . You know, i have not. I would love to meet him, because ive been such a great admirer of him and his talent, but i have not spoken to him. I feel like we can make that happen, dr. Fauci. I feel like we, you know, you and i have the power to have you meet brad, because i sort of feel like anything you and i suggest, he does. Well, well see. Well speep thanee. Thanks, alisyn. Im not done with you. Would you like to go up on stage when he wins. Would you like there to accept the emmy award . The only reason i have hesitancy about that is that were in the middle of an outbreak, a bad pandemic and i think that if that association with kind of showbiz thing might be interpreted that im not serious about what im doing. So i would rather focus on my job and really wish him well that he wins. I was afraid there was going to be a point that i pushed you too far, and i feel like that we have just gotten up to that point. But we really appreciate how playful you have been on the lighter note with all of that. And it was just great. It was just a great moment to watch, you know, that obviously brad pitt is a fan of yours and all of your information, as well. Yeah, thanks. Thanks, alisyn, appreciate it. Not handsome enough, brad pitt. Thats the one inaccurate point there. Brad pitt not quite goodlooking enough. Thanks for being with us, dr. Fauci. Thanks, john. You just heard from dr. Anthony fauci there, talk about the coronavirus, talk about the pandemic. 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Because were all in this together. Okay, lets bring in dr. Sanjay gupta, cnn chief medical correspondent. Sanjay, good to see you. We know you also had a long chat with dr. Fauci yesterday. So what is our takeaway this morning . I think the point that hes been making for some time is that weve never been able to get this really under control. Even when some of these measures were put in, in march, they were they ended up being sort of halfmeasures. States did not fully shut down. We people were not compliant ultimately, fully about masks, some places better than others. There have been some bright spots, obviously, where you live in new york has been a bright spot. But thats not what the rest of the country looks like. I was talking to some sources late last night. If you look at the country overall, still about half the country Wearing Masks. Thats an example. About half the country Wearing Masks, despite the fact that so in so many cities across america, the numbers continue to go up. Youre getting some significant travel again. People really becoming possibly without Wearing Masks. The concern is that the virus will continue to spread. I think the question that you asked him about, so, we came down to a roughly 20,000 you know, that was the lowest that we came down to. 17,000 was the lowest, but it plateaued around 20,000 new infections daily. So what is the right number . We are in mitigation phase. Were trying to slow things down in this country. What weve always been striving for is containment. And you feel like you truly get your arms around this virus in this country, what number does that mean. Its roughly 1 in a million to 1 in 100,000 new cases a day. That between 2350 to 3,000 new cases a day. Im sure so glad you put a number on it. 20,000, he said, was not enough. You need to be down below 3,500 cases a day nationally. And that doesnt seem anywhere close, i have to say, at this poi point. No, it doesnt, but it is totally achievable, too. Thats the thing, when we look at whats happening in other countries, they were able to get to that containment sort of mode and do it fairly quickly. Within weeks, not within several months. So the idea, you know, the five things that dr. Fauci has been talking about. The people have been talking about since the beginning, wearing a mask, physically distancing, avoiding crowded indoor spaces, avoiding large crowds and washing your hands often. Thats it. Thats not adding in a level of therapeutics or vaccines into that. It is adding into a level of testing. Being able to quickly identify new infections. But if you have all of that, within a few weeks, you can bring the numbers down to that containment level. Dr. Fauci was saying that he doesnt think that it will be impossible to eradicate coronavirus. It wont just magically disappear. But we talked to dr. Peter hotez earlier this morning and he said they are working on a universal coronavirus vaccine, which was just interesting to hear. Not just chasing a covid19, and then, you know, sars, mers. So that would eradicate it, wouldnt it . Yeah, you know, ive got to tell you, the Science Behind this stuff is fascinating and the problem with this particular virus is its so contagious. Thats what makes it hard to eradicate. You know, sars and mers going back to 2003, essentially did wirth away wither away in this world because it wasnt nearly as contagious, although sars was very, very deadly. Ultimately in the world, 8,000 people roughly were infected and 800 people died. Not that many infects, but a 10 fatality rate. Thats really high. The universal vaccines, theyve been talking about it for flu for some time and now with coronavirus, is this idea that these viruses do share enough in common that you could create a vaccine that would make neutralizing antibodies to the most stable component of these viruses. And were going to need this. As much as were in the middle of this right now, there will be other coronavirus or other type pandemics. So to be able to have a universal vaccine of some sort would be amazing. Youve got to invest in it. And we tend to, you know, as soon as this goes away, we say, weve got to spend the money on other things. Weve got to invest in this when were not in the middle of it. So i didnt get a chance to ask dr. Faucis about the president s claim that children are immune to coronavirus. And part of the reason i didnt ask this is we dont need dr. Fauci to answer this. Theres an answer we all know, kids are not immune. In fact, facebook and twitter suspended or took down those posts from the president yesterday, sanjay. So in terms well, just address that, if you would. There are two things i want to say. First of all, im living here in georgia and were covering the story every day with you guys and living it very personally, talking to friends, family, all over the place here in georgia. There were 260 kid at a summer camp that my kids would have typically gone to in any other year that were infected with this virus. One Camp Counselor felt sick two days after camp started, he went home, subsequently tested positive. They started testing kids and 260 out of 600 kids were infected with this virus, so kids are definitely not immune. I think the president is not using the word immune correctly or doesnt know what means. Kids wican definitely get infecd with this virus. So since the beginning, for kids, you have had close to 350,000 kids, people under the age of 18 that have been infected with this virus. It is true that theyre less likely to die, but this is not a binary story