Surgeon General: Virus Will Get Worse Before it Gets Better

The nation is shifting from containing the spread of coronavirus to a posture of mitigation, during which it is trying to help people understand that there is community spread of the disease and that the growth of the illness will get worse before it gets better, Surgeon General Jerome Adams said Monday. 

"Coronavirus (is) in over 30 different states and we want people to know those at risk, those with chronic medical conditions and older people and most importantly, they should wash their hands frequently; they should stay away from crowded places," Adams told Fox Business' "Mornings With Maria."

He added that the number of cases is expected to "go up rapidly," as they did in China, but then again, the reassuring news is that cases there are also starting to go down.
"We feel pretty good about the fact that if we do the things that we know from past experience with SARS or H1N1 will limit the spread person-to-person," Adams said. "But I want the American people to know that this will, in fact, get worse before it gets better."

However, he stressed that most people will just have a mild illness, but "if we really pay attention to who is most at risk, we can help protect the most vulnerable."

Further, as of Monday, there are enough tests to test about a million people for coronavirus, and those numbers will grow, said Adams. 

"The honest truth is that at a health department level, we are not hearing about shortages of the actual test being a problem so much as we are hearing about the local capacity to be able to test to be an issue," said Adams. "This week we are really encouraging state and local officials to lean into going into CDC.gov and helping providers test for coronavirus and what types of protocols to have in place. We want to get to a place where anyone whose doctor says needs a test, can get a test."

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