Large coronavirus outbreaks in several states aren't a second wave of the disease because "they never really got rid of the first wave," former Trump administration FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said Thursday.
“When you look at states like Arizona and Texas, South Carolina and North Carolina, those are where the big outbreaks are right now,” Gottlieb, now a contributor to CNBC, said on the network's "Squawk Box." "The more concerning part is they haven't been able to isolate what the source of the infection is."
Gottlieb said that in some states, when infection rates go up, the numbers are related to a facility such as a prison or a nursing home.
However in states like Texas and Arizona, "it seems to be more pervasive, and they haven't been able to do the contact tracing to find a source," said Gottlieb.
Gottlieb said it's concerning that the United States still has not been able to contain the virus, noting that once it hits certain environments, it takes hold.
"This is the type of virus that could flare any time," said Gottlieb. "If it gets into the right setting, it could start to propagate."
He added that in states where it is hot, such as in Arizona or Texas, a perceived seasonal benefit from summer weather is "probably tipping over right now."
"Many people are indoors due to the heat," he said. "That might explain the spread now in some of the hot states."
Gottlieb also spoke about concerns over the supply of remdesivir, an experimental drug that appears to help some COVID-19 patients recover faster.
"The supply should last us through the next couple of months assuming the hospitalization rates don't go up from here," said Gottlieb. "Heading into the fall, we'll have more supply so that if we have another epidemic on the scale of what we had during the first go around, there should be enough for the more severely hospitalized patients."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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