New Jersey is well positioned to navigate spikes Covid-19 cases that will likely occur throughout the fall and winter, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday.
Fauci, speaking during a Facebook Live event hosted by Gov. Phil Murphy, said the state’s ability to stave off flare-ups of the virus since the spring should allow the governor to gradually unwind rules limiting businesses, schools and the economy in the coming months.
“The thing that makes me very pleased and encouraged about New Jersey is that, notwithstanding that you got hit pretty badly, right now if you continue to carefully and prudently reopen the economy, you can get through the fall and the winter,” said Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
Once the global epicenter of the pandemic, New Jersey has fared better than most other states in staving back subsequent surges. More than 200,000 residents have tested positive for the virus and an estimated 16,100 have died, including roughly 7,100 residents and staff at long-term care facilities.
With daily reports of new cases at one point registering in the thousands, New Jersey only began to flatten the curve after Murphy imposed a stay-at-home order that shut down most of New Jersey’s retail economy. Mask mandates were put in place and, until late May, large gatherings were prohibited.
While other states began to unwind their shutdown orders in late spring and early summer, Murphy kept core elements of New Jersey’s in place. Gyms, indoor dining and movie theaters weren’t permitted to reopen until earlier this month. After spending weeks pushing for in-person instruction, Murphy gave schools the go-ahead to reopen with remote-only or hybrid instruction plans.
Critics, including many of the state’s leading Republicans, argue that Murphy’s directives kept New Jersey’s economic recovery stuck in first gear. Fauci, however, said compliance with those measures set a baseline that will better prepare residents for colder weather, which will almost certainly lead to an uptick in cases.
On Thursday, New Jersey reported 588 new cases and a rate of transmission of 1.15. Its spot positivity rate, the percentage of new tests that came back positive, remains below 3 percent.
“There are some regions, governor, some states, some cities, some counties, some regions of the country, that are really going to have a problem if they don’t get that baseline below a level so that when you do get cases you can handle it,” Fauci said, later offering a more explicit endorsement for Murphy’s reopening timeline: “I live in Washington now so I’m not politically connected to anything. Listen to what your governor has said about being prudent and careful.”
Many of New Jersey’s lockdown rules will have to remain in place until vaccines become widely available next year.
During the Facebook Live event, Fauci repeated his expectation that doses won’t be distributed to the public at-large until mid-to-late 2021.
Even after doses are widely distributed, it’s likely the vaccine won’t be 100 percent effective and Covid-19 will remain a threat so long as large segments of the population refuse to take the vaccine.
“There already is a reluctance in this country to get vaccinated. I know because I get on podcasts and chatrooms and Instagrams, and people keep plugging in and saying, ‘I’m not so sure I trust it,’” he said.
New Jersey lawmakers last year tried and failed to pass legislation that would have eliminated religious exemptions from mandatory childhood vaccinations. Anti-vaccine and religious rights activists flooded the state house in opposition to the bill, at times drowning out debate on the floor of the state Senate.
Despite growing concerns about the speed with which a vaccine is expected to be made available, Fauci said approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration will be completely separate from “the political situation.”
“We’ve got to build the trust and outreach to the community that what we’re doing is completely transparent so that they believe us when we say, ‘This is safe, this is effective,’” he said.