On August 3, epidemiologist and Rutgers School of Public Health dean Perry N. Halkitis appeared on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront nightly news program and talked about the increasing number of coronavirus cases in New Jersey and around the country. He said that New Jersey may need to enact further restrictions in order to prevent the deaths “that are inevitable.”
“What we’re seeing throughout the country is that human behavior is undermining our efforts to curtail this epidemic,” said Halkitis, a core faculty member of Rutgers Global Health Institute. “We believe that human beings make choices based on wise decisions to take care of their health and the people around them. But they don’t. Their emotions take over, their feelings take over, their desire to have a good time takes over.”
“How many people are prescribed antibiotics for 14 days and take them for 7 and then stop taking them? How many people are intending to go to the gym 5 days a week and do not? Here’s the same thing,” Halkitis said. “We need people to wear their masks all the time and to distance, and we need to remind them that death is a reality.”