‘We fear the worst.’ Top health officials say pandemic ‘not even close to being over’

Top health officials in the world and the United States are sounding the alarm about the global coronavirus pandemic.

“We all want this to be over,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, on Monday. “We all want to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over.”

Tedros said the pandemic is “speeding up” across the world, adding, “the worst is yet to come.” He cited national disunity and global divisions as prime factors in the spread of COVID-19.

“I’m sorry to say that, but with this kind of environment and conditions we fear the worst,” Tedros said.

Also on Monday, the principal deputy director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested the opportunity to control the pandemic in the United States may be slipping away, CNBC reported.

“We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat in an interview with the Journal of the American Medical Association, CNBC reported.

She said there was “a lot of wishful thinking around the country” that the pandemic would end with the coming of summer, according to the network. “This is really the beginning.”

“There’s still a lot of virus,” Schuchat said, CNBC reported. “And in lots of places, there’s more virus circulating than there was.”

In testimony Tuesday before a U.S. Senate panel, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s top infectious disease expert, said he “would not be surprised” to see the daily count of new cases in the United States rise to 100,000 a day if current trends persist, CNN reported.

“I think it is important to tell you the American public that I’m very concerned because it could get very bad,” said Fauci, according to the network.

More than 10.3 million cases of the COVID-19 virus have been confirmed worldwide with more than 507,000 deaths as of Tuesday, June 30, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has more than 2.6 million confirmed cases with more than 126,000 deaths.

The World Health Organization has declared coronavirus a global pandemic. In the United States, President Donald Trump has declared a national emergency.

This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 1:28 PM with the headline "‘We fear the worst.’ Top health officials say pandemic ‘not even close to being over’."