Anthony Fauci: US coronavirus cases came from Europe rather than China

People wearing face masks walk down a street near Union Square on June 25 in New York City. /AFP

WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show revealed on June 23 that Anthony Fauci, the director of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believed the US should be noted that “the first wave of cases came from Europe as ‘everybody was looking at China’”.

According to Dr. Fauci, US officials weren't focused on where the real threat was. When China was seeing a rapid rise in cases earlier this year in January, US President Donald Trump immediately restricted travel from the Asian nation on February 2. However, when the outbreak in China was fast under control, while European countries fell and suffered from even more rapid increase of cases, the US acted far less in time, leaving the New York City hit hard as a result. “With more than 213,000 cases, the new coronavirus infected more people in the city than in all but 10 countries reporting cases,” Newsweek reported.

On March 10, Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called Europe the “new China” during his testimony before a House subcommittee. He noted that “a lot” of people who were coming to America from Europe were “starting to seed” communities in the U.S.

Though at the time, it was believed that the US officials were “moving quickly” to address the problem from Europe, followed by travel restrictions for certain European countries on March 13, it seemed only fair now that they actually weren’t – a week after the ban was enacted, “New York went from 421 cases to more than 8,000”, Newsweek stressed.

Fauci believed that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio already did a great job, despite the truth that some actions were clearly neglected by the US regarding the travel restrictions for Europe. He praised them for “being two people who clearly wanted to do it right by listening to experts and not moving into the next phase of reopening until the federal guidelines dictated they were able to”.