Fox News:解除强制口罩令是重大错误(3)

WALLACE: Doctor, as we said in -- in the last segment, President Biden is coming down pretty hard on -- on these governors who are -- are relaxing restrictions. His famous phrase this week "Neanderthal thinking." But the day after Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, noted that with a lot of people right now coming across the border illegally into this country, that 108 people who had been released in Brownsville, Texas, had tested positive for the COVID virus and Governor Abbott continued on with this. Take a look.

GOV. GREG ABBOTT: The Biden administration was exposing Texans to COVID. That is a Neanderthal-type approach to dealing with the COVID situation.

WALLACE: Doctor, is this the right time to be relaxing immigration restrictions and allowing more people to come across the border and more people to be released into the country when you're in the midst of a public health crisis? 

FRIEDEN: Well, let's get the numbers straight here. The United States has more than 50,000 cases a day diagnosed and probably two or three times that many actually occurring every day. The vast majority, 99.999 percent of the infections spread in the U.S. arise in the U.S. Let's focus on getting our house in order. And we can do that by masking up, doubling down on protection protocols, vaccinating the moment it's your turn. And as we do that, Chris, over the next few months, we will get to a much safer situation, we will get to a new normal. But I think masks are going to be a part of that normal for many months to come. That's the sensible thing to do, to get our kids back in school, people back to work, and our economy moving again.
 

WALLACE: But I -- you talk about the fact that we're headed in the right direction. I want to put up some video on the screen because, as you well know, this is spring break time and there are a lot of young people who are flocking to Florida, congregating on beaches. This is one of the more sedate -- ah, this is a bitter picture of people in bars at spring break. Does that worry you? Is this your worst nightmare?

FRIEDEN: It does worry me. Chris, what we'd seen every time there's been a holiday with people traveling and mixing, we've seen a big surge in cases after. Right now the -- the main question that we have to know is, is there going to be a fourth surge in this country or not? We've had three deadly surges. Will we have a fourth? And the answer to that -- the answer to that is something we can control by masking up and avoiding sharing indoor air with people not in your household.

WALLACE: Dr. Frieden, thank you. Thanks for joining us. Please come back, sir.

FRIEDEN: Thank you.