Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is warning state leaders to not let Labor Day gatherings ruin the nation’s progress in the fight against coronavirus.
"You remember following the 4th of July, following Memorial Day, when people understandably get out and congregate, we’ve had surges," Fauci said during Vice President Mike Pence’s weekly call with governors, according to audio obtained by ABC News.
"If we can get by the Labor Day weekend with the cases, the hospitalizations and the deaths going down in general throughout the country, we can get a running start as we go into the fall," Fauci said. "The one thing you don't want is to play whack-a-mole as you go into the fall, where you've gotten everything down and then one comes up."
"You can have a lot of fun without necessarily congregating in crowds with no masks, the situations where you can spread the infection," Fauci said. "We can do it … I have a great deal of faith in the American people that they will do that."
Both Pence and the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, Dr. Deborah Birx, asked governors to tell university presidents to isolate COVID-positive students rather than send them out to spread the virus at home or in an off-campus community.
"The majority of students -- even in online campuses -- are staying in their off-campus housing that they have rented," Birx said. "And so it's really important that these students are continuously tested, isolated and cared for, and don't return to their multi-generational households where they could dramatically increase spread, particularly over the Labor Day weekend."
ABC News' Katherine Faulders contributed to this report.