Health experts urge Americans to wear masks and take other precautions as coronavirus cases continue to climb

And though the projection for the future looks bleak, Collins said the nation has gotten on top of the virus before and can do it again, if the public finds the motivation again.

“We shouldn’t feel hopeless here and we know what works,” Collins said. “We know that if we could, as Americans, agree to take those recommendations to heart, that we would keep our masks on when we’re outside, we’d stay more than six feet apart from each other and we would avoid indoor gatherings where there’s a big chance of spread, we wash our hands and all that, then we could implement what we know has worked,” he said.

More support and more controversy over face masks

Science shows that face masks protect the wearer and those around them from coronavirus, and everyone should wear one when around others in public, the CDC said Tuesday.

But in Georgia — which is among the 18 states in the coronavirus “red zone” that should roll back reopening measures, according to an unpublished document prepared for the White House — the governor has clashed with mayors on such restrictions.

“This is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing,” Utah County Commissioner Tanner Ainge said at the meeting room in Provo. “We’re supposed to be physically distancing, wearing masks. This gathering violates current health recommendations.”

85 babies infected in Texas

As the number of cases continues to climb, a Texas health official on Friday asked for help stopping the disease’s spread, citing dozens of infants who have become infected.

“I have been reviewing statistics. We currently have 85 babies, under the age of one year in Nueces County, that have all tested positive for Covid-19,” Corpus Christi – Nueces County Director of Public Health Annette Rodriguez said in a Public Health District meeting. “These babies have not even had their first birthday yet.”

“Please help us stop the spread of this disease,” she added.

Texas has been among the states at the forefront of the recent case resurgence.

After setting a record of 129 deaths in a single day the day before, Texas broke the record Friday with 174 deaths.

The state also reported 10,256 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, bringing the total number of cases in the state to 307,572.

Treatment could be available in months

Though cases are surging, Collins said he’s “optimistic” an “effective treatment” for Covid-19 will be available in two to three months.

“There is a lot of progress in therapeutics,” Collins told Blitzer. “We have two proven drugs — remdesivir and dexamethasone, both proven in rigorous randomized control trials, which is the only way you really know if something works.”

Remdesivir is an antiviral drug that has been shown to reduce the amount of time people are ill with Covid-19. Dexamethasone is a steroid that may reduce the rate of deaths among seriously ill patients.

“I’m optimistic, without being able to be confident completely, that we’ll have something maybe as soon as two or three months from now, in terms of an effective treatment.”

Collins is also optimistic about the development of a successful vaccine by the end of the year.

“The first vaccine trial, as you probably heard, building on very successful preliminary data, will get started around about July 27 all across the southern part of the country where the virus is spreading.”

Collins says if one of the vaccine trials is successful, there will be “tens of millions of doses ready to go by the end of 2020, the end of the calendar year.”