The spread of coronavirus in the United States will get worse this week, and there are "not enough people out there taking this seriously," Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams warned on Monday.
“Everyone needs to act as if they have the virus right now," Adams said on NBC's "Today." "So, test or no test, we need you to understand you could be spreading it to someone else. Or you could be getting it from someone else. Stay at home."
"I want America to understand this week, it's going to get bad," Adams also said.
The disease is spreading, however, because there are so many people, especially younger adults, who are not following guidance to stay at home and to practice social distancing.
Tourists are still flocking to California's beaches and to the National Mall in Washington, said Adams, and younger people must understand that they, too, can contract COVID-19 and that they could potentially die from it.
However, Adams said that it's not yet necessary for President Donald Trump to use the Defence Production Act, which would force companies to make critical medical supplies.
"You don't need to compel someone to do something they are already doing,” said Adams, pointing out that there are already several companies such as Hanes and Honeywell stepping in to produce supplies.
“The other important point is that we're not going to ventilator our way out of this problem. We're not going to treat our way out of this problem,” he said. “The way you stop the spread of an infectious disease like this is with mitigation measures and preventing people from getting it in the first place.”
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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