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Dr. Fauci talks COVID-19 with Coach K: 'We're not even to halftime'

MANDEL NGAN / AFP / Getty

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A week after joining Stephen Curry for an Instagram Q&A, Dr. Anthony Fauci continued his rounds of the basketball world Thursday by appearing on Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski's SiriusXM Radio show to discuss COVID-19.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, used a basketball analogy to explain the coronavirus pandemic.

"Right now we have a team that's a very powerful team, and that's the virus,” he said. "And what we need to do is that we've got to play a full-court press. I mean, we can't let them get the ball on the ground to dribble. We've just gotta be all over them. I mean, that's what we've really got to do, because that's the only tool we have right now.

"And the game - we're not even at halftime, Coach K. You know, I mean, we're just fighting it out."

To date, there are more than 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally and more than 55,000 people have died from the disease caused by the new coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

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