For many Americans, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci has been the source for all solid information on the COVID-19 pandemic. Since early in the national response, Dr. Fauci has been out ahead of things, appearing on multiple television networks and daily White House briefings.

One of the statements Dr. Fauci made during a briefing centered around the concept of a 'second wave' of COVID-19. This is a concept that many have pushed, believing that there will be a guaranteed 'second wave', because of the course of the 1918 Flu Pandemic. Even with vast changes in society between 1918 and 2020, there are still many who latch onto this concept.

Previously, Dr. Fauci has been predicting the arrival of a 'second wave' of COVID. But this week, Dr. Fauci changed his stance that he held a few months ago on a 'second wave'. During a CNN interview this week, Dr. Fauci said:

“We don’t inevitably have to have a second wave. I mean people talk about it but it doesn’t necessarily have to occur.”

So what changed?

It sounds like advances in testing, contact tracing, and manpower have all contributed to to the doctor's change of opinion. He went on to tell CNN in the interview:

“It’s the way we and the efficiency and effectiveness in which we put the manpower, the systems, the tests, to identify isolate and contact trace that will determine how successful we are in preventing that wave” 

During that interview, Dr. Fauci did acknowledge that cases will inevitably "start to creep up", but that's something other doctors have already discussed. As more states start increasing their testing capacity, those states will see more cases. KEEL News spoke to Dr. Alex Billioux, the Assistant Secretary of the Louisiana Office of Public Health, who said that the increase in cases shouldn't be our only focus:

"Part of that is driven by the fact that we doubled the amount of testing statewide from where we were in April. We've exceeded, essentially doubled, what the White House has given us as a goal for testing. And so as you test more, you're going to find more cases. So just in isolation, seeing more cases not enough for us to feel that things are getting out of hand. As you said, you really want to see what's going on with hospitalization, what's the severity of the illness, and also what's the rate of rise in those cases."

 

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