U.S. officials tasked with mitigating the coronavirus pandemic feel the Italian government failed to effectively restrict travel from China at the beginning of the outbreak, Dr. Anthony Fauci suggests.

Fauci offered the insight during an interview on Face the Nation in which he was asked if the United States is on a trajectory to face conditions similar to Italy’s, which are currently dire.

“If you look at the dynamics of the outbreak in Italy, we don’t know why they are suffering so terribly, but there is a possibility — and many of us believe — that early on, they did not shut out — well — the input of infections that originated in China and came to different parts of the world,” Fauci said.

“One of the things we did very early and very aggressively, the president put the travel restriction coming from China to the United States — and most recently from Europe to the United States, because Europe is really the new China.”

Fauci asserted that Italian doctors are highly competent, but they have been totally overwhelmed by a massive surge in cases in a short period of time.

“Again, I don’t know why this is happening there to such extent, but it’s conceivable that once you get so many of these spread out, they spread exponentially and you can never keep up with this tsunami,” Fauci explained.

Italy is reporting 63,927 confirmed coronavirus cases at the time of this writing, and 6,077 deaths — the most in the world, on record.

However, the number of deaths has slowed two days in a row, offering a modicum of hope.



America is entering permanent martial law, warns legal scholar and attorney Robert Barnes.

Dan Lyman: Follow @CitizenAnalyst