Coronavirus Has Reached ‘Community Spread’ Within United States: Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci – the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (who Joe Biden falsely claimed was being ‘muzzled’), said on Sunday that “community spread” of the new coronavirus in which cases cannot be directly traced to anyone are becoming more common throughout the United States.

As Fox News notes, the term “community spread” is defined as an infection with an unknown origin, or ‘index case,’ as opposed to most of the early coronavirus cases which could be clearly traced from travel or contact with known patients.

According to Fauci, this comes as no surprise.

“This was something that was entirely expected when you have diffuse infections throughout the world – as you’ve just mentioned, South Korea, Iran, Italy, in places like that – sooner or later there are going to be cases in your country that you can’t directly trace to anyone,” he said in an Sunday interview with Fox & Friends Weekend. “That becomes much more challenging about identifying the source.”

Cases such as those in Washington state and Oregon (which may be far more widespread than we know) require officials to do “much more intensive contact tracing in addition to the isolation,” he added.

Fauci, who is also director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, went on to address whether it is appropriate to compare the coronavirus with the seasonal flu.

“Yes and no,” Fauci said, cautioning that the comparison is suitable in some respects, but not in others.

“It clearly is much more lethal, if you want to call it that, than the typical seasonal flu,” he said. –Fox News

The mortality rate of the flu is around 0.1%, while coronavirus’ mortality rate is approximately 2 to 2.3%, according to Fauci – who suggested that the number might be lower if the total number of cases could be accurately assessed.

Fauci added that coronavirus will mostly affect older people with underlying health conditions, but that infections in young, healthy individuals can still occur.