Former Harvard Medical Professor Dr. William Haseltine directly tied the new daily records in positive Covid-19 cases to the decisions by many states across the South and West to reopen their social distancing rules too early: “We’re reaping what we’ve sown over the past months.”

During an appearance on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Haseltine, who has just written the book A Family Guide to Covid, explained that the increasing coronavirus cases seen in dozens of states was an entirely predictable consequence of relaxing lockdowns too early and failing to enforce mask-wearing policies.

“We’re now reaping what we’ve seen over the past months,” Haseltine said when asked about the latest spikes by Cooper. “That is, we failed to control this epidemic in a number of our southern, western, and the south part of California. We just didn’t do what we needed to do. And the moment you relax, there is a big base of infection that’s just exploded and so those places, like New York City, that took it seriously, we’ve gone from 10,000, 11,000 people down to 500, 600 a day. We’re not where we need to be, but we’re doing a lot better. But the whole rest of the country didn’t pay attention, didn’t believe what everybody was telling them, and this is the result. And now we hope people will start behaving more responsibly. We hope that leadership will behave more responsibly and we can begin to put this genie back in the bottle.”

Cooper, however, pushed back on that notion, pointing out that President Donald Trump still refuses to wear a mask and that his administration has said it is “our hope and our prayer” that the spike in cases doesn’t lead to a corresponding explosion in virus-related deaths.

“It seems like the president made a decision early on to wash his hands of this and to for reasons that are pretty obvious just get people, try to reopen stuff so the economy picks up so it reflecting well on him,” the CNN host pointed out. “It takes political courage and will to really make a change and do you believe it’s possible to put the genie back in the bottle?”

“I think it maybe not possible to put our president back in a bottle,” Haseltine conceded, “but it is possible for the American people. We’re smart people. I have great confidence in my fellow Americans and I believe this situation is so grim and is getting worse by the day that everybody is going to begin to understand it’s their responsibility.

“You can already see that happening. The local leadership in this country is saying: ‘Wait a minute. This is my state. This is my city. I’ve got to protect it. I don’t care what the national government is telling me. I’ve got to protect my people.’ And I’m seeing that response, and I’m very heartened by that response. And I think you’re going to see the mayors and the governors singing a very different tune from now on.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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