Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases, said during a CNN interview that Louisiana's decision to shut down to slow the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus probably should have come "a bit sooner."
"I'm not blaming anyone on that, but you get caught unaware because of the nature of this outbreak that's so frustrating and in many respects a bit frightening and intimidating," Dr. Fauci told CNN's Chris Cuomo. "It putters along and you think you're okay, then it start to go up a little, and bingo, it goes up in an exponential way."
New Orleans ranks in the top ten among counties for coronavirus infections per capita, behind five counties of the New York metropolitan area, The Times Picayune | New Orleans Advocate published Monday.
Tuesday evening, President Donald Trump has declared a major disaster in Louisiana.
