U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Wednesday doubled down on his belief that the nation has hit a pivotal point in combating the coronavirus pandemic.
Adams told NBC “Today” host Savannah Guthrie he feels the United States has “turned the corner on testing.”
“I think we’re starting to turn a corner, and people really are [sensing the urgency],” Adams stated. “It’s because it’s starting to affect people who they see and know.”
He added, “Look, chances are you don’t have coronavirus. Chances are if you do you’ll recover based on Korea data, 99.3 percent of people recover. But what we don’t want to do is have you or other people out there spreading it to people who are at higher risk.”
Adams emphasized the importance of Americans to participate in the “15 days to stop the spread initiative.”
“We’re telling people that we really want them to avoid gatherings of 10 or more,” he outlined. “We want them to avoid any unnecessary travel. We want them to work from home if at all possible or not go in. The reason why we framed it that way is because when we look at the data, our numbers are where Italy’s were two to three weeks ago. So, we really have a choice to make right now as a nation: Do we want to go the way of Italy and see our numbers increase rapidly, or do we want to go the way of South Korea and China who aggressively leaned into mitigation measures and were able to level off their peak and are now seeing significantly decreased number of cases?”
Adams continued, “We feel like if we can get America to all pitch in for the next 15 days, we can flatten the curve, which is a term you’ve been hearing a lot, not overwhelm our health care systems and hopefully get through this.”
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