Speaking via videoconference with California State University’s chancellor and campus presidents Friday, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist offered a message of hope.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that while the state is being ravaged by a COVID-19 surge, relief is in sight. College students, he said, will emerge stronger from the pandemic.
Fauci told Chancellor Timothy White and CSU presidents – in a conversation shared via YouTube – that California is in a “bittersweet” situation due to the massive COVID-19 surge it is seeing.
“The bitter part of it is what you all in California are really experiencing, because if you look at the map of the country, right now, today, California is being hit as hard as any state in the union, to the point where you’re at the verge of in some sections of the state to have your health-care system overrun, running out of beds,” Fauci said. “That is the reason why you really had to resort to rather dramatic shutdown procedures.
“That’s the bitter part. The sweet part and the light at the end of the tunnel is that as these weeks and months go by and we hang in there, things will get better and better as we implement a vaccine over the coming months that will ultimately turn around and put this outbreak behind us,” he said.
“But,” he conceded, “it is going to be a challenging few months.”
He said the state and country are at a “crossroads.”
“We’re being challenged in an extraordinary way at the same time that there is hope that we’re going to be able to get out of this,” Fauci said.
He also encouraged CSU students to persevere as they continue their education through “such unusual trying times.”
“I have faith, you know, abiding faith that our young people in our country and your students at all of the Cal State University campuses can reach down, deep down, and pull out the best of themselves to realize that they are unique because they are living through something that is quite historic,” he said.
“And if they come out of this – which they will, I have real faith in our young people – they will come with renewed strength that they could get through something that is historic in proportion that generations have not had the opportunity to experience.
“They need to realize when they look around at the person next to them and they look around at the campus – up in the north by Humboldt or down south by San Diego State – we’re all in it together. And if they realize that, we can pull together and get through it.
“And when this is all over – and it will end – the students have to realize this will end and we will get back to normality. We’ll have learned lessons but we will get back to normality. They could look back on this and say, `You know, I’ve been through it and I got through it.’ And I think at the end of it you’re going to have a whole lot of 486,000 stronger students if you do that.”
CSU San Marco President Ellen Neufeldt tweeted thanks to Fauci and White, saying “we appreciate your time and expertise as we work together to slow the spread.”
White urged campus leaders earlier this month to carefully assess even limited returns to on-campus classes as the state faces its COVID-19 surge.
– City News Service
