Dr. Anthony Fauci: We're 'ahead of the curve' thanks to Trump

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (CNN screenshot)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has advised six presidents on HIV/AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues, said Friday that the United States is "ahead of the curve" on containing the coronavirus because of President Trump's unprecedented travel restrictions.

"Clearly, early on, we made a travel ban with regard to China -- that was a very smart move right there," he said in an interview with MSNBC's "Morning Joe," "because what that did was prevent a major influx from China."

Today, said Fauci, the focus is on Europe, which is now "seeding other countries throughout the world."

"That's the reason why we made the very difficult, but appropriate, decision to have a travel ban on the European countries," said Fauci, who has been the director since 1984 of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

"So we are definitely ahead of the curve on that," he said.

At a news conference Friday in Albany, New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo took a moment to put the coronavirus outbreak in "perspective."

"You want to relax yourself, look at the facts," he said, pointing to the latest numbers from Johns Hopkins University.

"I understand emotion; I also understand facts," the Democratic governor said. "You want to relax yourself, you want to understand what's going on, look at the facts. Look at the facts. They have tracked every coronavirus case."

Johns Hopkins has recorded 137,387 cases worldwide, with 5,088 deaths, 69,779 total recoveries and 62,520 pending cases.

"You look into that 5,000 number," he said, referring to the deaths, "you're going to see senior citizens, you'll see people who had underlying respiratory illnesses that were pre-existing. You're going to see people with compromised immune systems."

Cuomo said it's "the same type of people who would be affected by the flu, but at a higher rate of infection and at a higher rate of mortality."

The governer said there's more panic and anxiety than is justified.

"We're dealing with the virus, and we're dealing with people's perception," he said. "In any emergency and any disaster, you have the issue that you're dealing with ... and then you have the public perception of the issue.

"The fear and the anxiety and the panic can be a more difficult issue than the underlying issue that you're dealing with," he said.

"And you have a lot of anxiety, much more anxiety than the facts would justify."

Cuomo cautioned, however, that "this is not going to be gone next week," it could take "months" before it's resolved.

See Fauci's remarks:

Thanks to President Trump’s unprecedented travel restrictions, Dr. Anthony Fauci says “we are ahead of the curve” on preventing a major influx of coronavirus cases from Europe.@RealDonaldTrump is taking the appropriate action to slow the spread and save American lives! pic.twitter.com/0sLvYvI53H

— Trump War Room - Text EMPOWER to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) March 13, 2020