In response to protests against social distancing, Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that opening too soon will backfire
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From the April 20, 2020, edition of ABC's Good Morning America
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (CO-HOST): Finally, sir, we're seeing these protests crop up all across the country, now including those protests in Texas and other places where they're saying “Fire Anthony Fauci," “Fauci is wrong." They're resisting these stay-at-home orders from governors. What's your message back to those protestors?
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think, you know, the message is that clearly this is something that is hurting from the standpoint of economics, from the standpoint of things that have nothing to do with the virus. But unless we get the virus under control, the real recovery economically is not going to happen, so what you do if you jump the gun and go into a situation where you have a big spike, you're going to set yourself back. So as painful as it is to go by the careful guidelines of gradually phasing into a reopening, it's going to backfire. That's the problem.