CNN's Sanjay Gupta frustrated that U.S. coronavirus spikes are only getting 'band-aids' when problem is like 'a patient bleeding out'

Sanjay Gupta
(Image credit: CNN)

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent, has grown fairly exasperated over the current state of the coronavirus crisis in the United States.

Gupta spoke on CNN Thursday morning after on Wednesday, the U.S. set a new record for number of new COVID-19 cases reported in a day, with Florida and Texas both confirming more than 5,000 new infections, and California confirming more than 7,000.

"This is troublesome what's happening here in the country right now," Gupta said. "There is still a path forward — we have to realize that — but at some point, we're not going to have a very clear path forward anymore, and the virus is just going to spread to a point where we can't control it."

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CNN's John Berman observed that "I don't think I've ever heard you sound so frustrated" throughout the entire crisis, and Gupta didn't seem to disagree.

"I cannot believe that we are in the predicament that we are in right now," he said. "...We're the greatest country on Earth. We should have been able to figure this out early. We should have been able to test. And now we're still having arguments about whether or not we should put these band-aids on the problem, such as masks. Effective band-aids, but still, band-aids on this problem. And we're still not even sure that we want to do that."

Gupta added, "We've got a patient bleeding out in front of us. We know what to do, and we are not doing it. And it is, yeah, it's frustrating, for sure." Brendan Morrow

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Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.