- A top coronavirus advisor for the incoming Biden administration called for focused restrictions on areas based on the coronavirus spread instead of a nationwide lockdown.
- "So we're not in a place where we're saying shut the whole country down; we [have] to be more targeted," Dr. Vivek Murthy, a co-chair of President-elect Joe Biden's COVID-19 advisory board, said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday.
- Murthy explained this would be the best approach to avoid pandemic fatigue, a larger toll on the economy, or further delay to school reopenings.
A top coronavirus advisor for President-elect Joe Biden says the US should focus restrictions in regions based on the spread of the coronavirus as opposed to a nationwide lockdown.
"So we're not in a place where we're saying shut the whole country down; we [have] to be more targeted," Dr. Vivek Murthy said on ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday morning. Murthy is a former surgeon general recently named as one of the three co-chairs of the incoming Biden administration's COVID-19 advisory board.
He explained that the US should now approach the pandemic through "a series of restrictions that we dial up or down depending on how bad spread is taking place in a specific region."
He cited, for example, that in New York City, restrictions have been enforced based on ZIP codes that reported high levels of coronavirus spread.
Murthy warned of the potential perils of a sweeping lockdown, explaining that the public would be more vulnerable to pandemic fatigue as well as larger damage to the economy and further delays to school reopening.
"So we've got to follow science, but we've got to also be more precise than we were in the spring," he told ABC.
On Wednesday, Michael Osterholm, also a member of Biden's COVID-19 advisory board, suggested the idea of carrying out several weeks of national lockdowns in an interview with Yahoo Finance. But ABC News reported on Thursday that Osterholm told the outlet this suggestion was not an idea he had discussed with others and that it was unlikely to be supported by lawmakers.
On Monday, the US surpassed 10 million coronavirus cases, according to Johns Hopkins University. On Thursday, more than 67,000 Americans were in the hospital due to complications from the coronavirus, an all-time high.
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