Top NIH Dr. Anthony Fauci says the coronavirus outbreak could be 'one of those things we look back on and say boy, that was bad'

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, spoke about the coronavirus outbreak in a story published by Politico on Tuesday.
• Fauci said the outbreak has the potential to be "really, really bad."
• As of Tuesday, there were more than 100 cases of coronavirus in the US and six deaths.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

One of the nation's leading infectious disease experts said the coronavirus outbreak in the US "could be really, really bad."

In an interview with Politico, which was published Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he doesn't think "we are going to get out of this completely unscathed."

"I think that this is going to be one of those things we look back on and say boy, that was bad," the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told Politico's Sarah Owermohle.

The NIAID is a branch of the National Institutes of Health. As director of the NIAID for the past 35 years, Fauci has led the response to outbreaks including Zika, Ebola, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

"It could be really, really bad," he said about coronavirus. "I don't think it's gonna be, because I think we'd be able to do the kind of mitigation. It could be mild. I don't think it's going to be that mild either. It's really going to depend on how we mobilize."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has face sharp criticism for testing so few people, and bungling the rollout of its own test, Business Insider's Aylin Woodward and Aria Bendix reported. Experts expect the number of confirmed cases to increase once more people in the US are tested.

As of Tuesday, 106 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the US, according to numbers from Johns Hopkins. Six people in the US have died of the disease COVID-19, all in Washington State.

Read the full interview with Fauci from Politico »

• Read more:
• Public health legend Anthony Fauci says working with the White House during an outbreak can be difficult because politicians can cause complacency in their attempts to 'calm people down'
• 9 US coronavirus patients - including 4 who died - have ties to a nursing home near Seattle. Here's how the outbreak may have spread in Washington.
• A New York City man wasn't tested for the coronavirus even though he had symptoms and had gone to Japan. It highlights the troublingly limited scope of US testing.
• Delays and errors have put the US far behind other countries in testing and treating coronavirus patients: 'We are trotting along while they're racing'