It just keeps coming at us.

And one of the headlines from earlier today one of the world's leading infectious disease experts, Dr Anthony Fauci, now on the White House, is task Force had a sobering assessment during a White House our House committee hearing.

So I can say we will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now.

How much worse will get will depend on our ability to do two things to contain the influx of in people who are infected coming from the outside and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country.

Bottom line, it's going to get worse.

You heard him there.

It is going to get worse.

So joining me now to try and unpacked Dr Fauci is bottom line is Harvard epidemiologist Dr Eric Feigal Ding to answer our questions.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Dr.

Have to be here.

So how significant is today's assessment that things will get worse and that this is 10 times deadlier than the flu?

I think it was high time that the W Joe declared their pandemic and we knew was coming.

All many of us epidemiologists knew that pandemic was already here.

So and the assessment that this is 10 times worse, that's actually a conservative estimate, because the mortality could be as low as 1% to as high as perhaps 3% and maybe higher, depending on if it overwhelms the health care system.

Like Lombardy, Italy right now has an 8% mortality because their health system's overwhelmed.

This is why testing as quickly as it can doing social distancing and containment of public events is really critical to make sure we don't hit those kind of really bad levels.

Are you concerned about our health system here in the United States and our hospitals being able to respond?

Yeah, I am concerned because the U.

S.

Has actually a very, very low ranking in terms of hospital beds per capita.

And as many of you know, if you ever try to get a hospital bed, it's really difficult.

Even in the best of times.

Our hospital beds and I C C systems are not equipped for the volume of case is concerned.

One in five individuals may need hospitalization and one in 20 would actually need potentially.

I see you.

And in the States with a lot of the healthcare inequalities, I'm really worried about that.

Are you thinking that we're likely to see infection rates in the U.

S.

Rising to the level of Italy?

It depends in us is a big place.

It may not be all that exactly the same, and not all of Italy is the same.

But I could see pockets of outbreaks in certain cities that overwhelms certain city hospitals if we do not flatten the curve, as we say, to delay the number of cases so that our health care system can actually handle it.

But I do expect potentially.

We are about three or four weeks behind Italy if we don't do anything.

And I'm really glad Washington State is doing the big containment off banning large events.

There's a patchwork of measures when it comes to social distancing.

Some schools and businesses are closing some of remaining open.

Is it time for more consistent approach?

Yeah, Obviously it's a lot of times it's ah, step state by state municipal of Valdez and school districts, but I do think we may have to do a much more quote unquote draconian measures.

For example, Washington State has bad a lot of bigger events over 250 but is not banned.

Smaller events and schools are still open for now, but Italy has gone to the lengths that they basically closed all businesses other than pharmacies and grocery stores.

We're not there yet.

Hopefully, if we contain fast enough, we won't have to get there.

But this epidemic is definitely coming is definitely it might soon be a 50 state epidemic in the near future, unless we do something before containment.

Alright, some sobering news there.

Thank you so much, Dr Fei Building.

We appreciate you joining us.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos here.

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