Editor’s Note: Due to COVID-19, TommieMedia staff members are working remotely. This is a special News in :90 report from Maddie’s home in St. Paul, Minn.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, is warning Congress that if the country reopens too soon during the coronavirus pandemic, it will result in “needless suffering and death.”
Fauci is among the health experts testifying Tuesday to a Senate panel. His testimony comes as President Donald Trump is praising states that are reopening after the prolonged lock-down aimed at controlling the virus’ spread.
With the U.S. economy in free-fall and more than 30 million people unemployed, Trump has been pressuring states to reopen. Fauci, in a statement to The New York Times, warned that officials should adhere to federal guidelines for a phased reopening, including a “downward trajectory” of positive tests or documented cases of coronavirus over two weeks, robust contact tracing and “sentinel surveillance” testing of asymptomatic people in vulnerable populations, such as nursing homes.
“If we skip over the checkpoints in the guidelines…then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks throughout the country,” Fauci wrote. “This will not only result in needless suffering and death, but would actually set us back on our quest to return to normal.”
South Korea, Germany and China have already seen new outbreaks after lockdown rules were relaxed.
In international news, militants stormed a maternity hospital in the western part of Kabul on Tuesday, setting off an hours-long shootout with the police and killing 14 people, including two newborn babies, their mothers and an unspecified number of nurses, Afghan officials said.
The violence could further undermine a peace process in the wake of a deal signed between the United States and the Taliban in February, which envisages the start of talks among key Afghan figures, including government representatives, and the Taliban.
Relentless, near-daily attacks have also left Afghan authorities ill-prepared to face the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 4,900 people in the country and killed at least 127.
At the University of St. Thomas, Michael “Sully” Sullivan was elected as student body president for the 2020 – 2021 school year.
Sullivan has been involved with the Ashoka U Changemaker program, was a Newman Civic Fellow and has served as vice president of academic affairs and vice president of public relations in Undergraduate Student Government. Sullivan’s main goals as student body president are listening to others and connecting with students on campus.
Sullivan and the new USG members will be sworn into office May 14 at the final general council meeting of the school year.
Maddie Peters can be reached at pete9542@stthomas.edu.