The surge in corona infections in the United States is mostly to blame for people who do not keep their distance from others and who wear mouth masks, said Anthony Fauci, the senior infectious disease control officer.
The wave of contagion is most influential in the southern and western states, which, despite warnings, had rebooted their economies when the virus was not yet on its way.
“That’s asking for a disaster,” Fauci told news channel CNN.
“We are now seeing the effects of dispersal within communities, which is even more difficult to contain than other local outbreaks such as in prisons, care homes and meat processing plants.”
On Sunday, the number of Americans who tested positive for the new coronavirus passed 2.5 million. More than 125,000 individuals in the US have now succumbed to the effects of a lung virus infection.
That is about a quarter of the global death toll from the pandemic. As many as fifteen states had a record number of new infections last week. Several states have already started to roll back eases.
Health officials are considering testing rigorously in high-contamination areas to get a sharper picture, Fauci said. In addition, he said he is confident that a vaccine may be available by the end of this year, although he added that no vaccine is 100 percent effective.