The former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration warned at least 500,000 people may contract coronavirus each day, during an interview on CNBC.
Scott Gottlieb, who headed the agency under the Trump administration, said on Wednesday that the country is probably diagnosing only one in 10 coronavirus cases, but the number of people contracting the disease per day is likely between 400,000 and 500,000.
“The reality is we have well more than 100,000 infections a day and more than 100,000 cases a day right now," Gottlieb said. "We're probably diagnosing, as we talked about, maybe 1 in 10 infections nationally ... in these epidemic states, where they're falling behind on testing."
While testifying to Congress on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he thought up to 100,000 new coronavirus cases would be diagnosed “if this does not turn around.”
Roughly 40,000 coronavirus cases have been reported as states continue to reopen. Some governors have rolled back their plans and have begun placing new restrictions on businesses.
"So the 40,000 to 50,000 infections that we're diagnosing each day right now really represents 400,000 to 500,000 infections. Now, those are infections. They're not all cases, because not all those people are symptomatic. But probably 200,000 to 300,000 of them are symptomatic — perhaps mildly symptomatic for a lot of them. So not enough to go get tested,” Gottlieb said.
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