Got questions about the coronavirus? Steph Curry is here to save the day. The Golden State Warriors player, 32, hosted a Q&A session on Instagram Live on March 26 with trusted infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, 79, And Steph’s followers were treated to a slew of important information about the growing, and sometimes confusing, threat of COVID-19 here and around the world. While President Donald Trump wasn’t acting on Dr. Fauci’s warnings at first, Fauci got Steph’s complete attention as he described the ins and outs of the highly-contagious virus, and what comes next for the United States. The NBA star asked Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, about the biggest question on people’s minds right now: when we’ll all be able to go about life as normal again.
“We’re going into week three since the NBA shut down, in terms of postponing the season,” Steph said. “The Olympics announced that they’re moving to next year. What needs to happen to determine that large gatherings, like sporting events, are okay and not seen as a threat of spreading the virus?” Fauci replied that there’s no way of actually knowing when the pandemic will end, but there’s hope in sight for getting back “some degree of normality” in the coming months. “We sit down in the Situation Room at the White House every day and go over that. What you need to see is the trajectory of the curve start to come down,” he said, referring to the number of total COVID-19 diagnoses.
“We’ve seen that in China; it went up and down. They’re starting to get back to normal life. Korea is starting to come back down. Europe, particularly Italy, is still in a terrible situation. The United States is a big country, and we have so many different regions. New York City is having a terrible time, but there are places [in the US] that are doing quite well. We can start thinking about getting back to some degree of normality when the country, as a whole, has turned the corner. Then, you can pinpoint cases much more easily instead of getting overwhelmed.” There are currently over 69,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States — the third-highest in the world, behind China (81,782) and Italy (74,386). Over 1000 people have died of the disease in the United States at the time this article was written. UPDATE: as of March 30, there are 156,391 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States; at least 2,897 people with the virus have died.
Steph is currently quarantining with wife Ayesha Curry, 31, and kids Riley, Ryan, and Canon Curry in California, where Governor Gavin Newsom ordered the entire state to stay home. Though the NBA season has been postponed amid the global crisis, as Steph mentioned, one of the league’s officials recently said that canceling it outright will not happen. “The idea of canceling a season is not at all on their mind,” David Griffin, the executive vice president of basketball operations for the New Orleans Pelicans, told the Washington Post. “I think we’re modeling every possible thing we can for how we can deliver a product to the fans who, quite frankly, I think all need a diversion at some point in the future.”
