Chuck Todd: Social Distancing Works, The Challenge Is To Keep Doing It Even When The Curve Starts To Flatten

Virus Outbreak Washington State — A pedestrian walks past stencil art showing a self-portrait of Seattle music photographer Lance Mercer that was created by artist Chloe Guenther on the window of a boarded up business, Wednesday, April 1, 2020 in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood.

Zoe Mathews is a producer for Boston Public Radio and the producer of The Scrum podcast.

April 02, 2020

Updated August 07, 2023

Two weeks into mandatory stay-at-home orders in Washington state and parts of California have showed social distancing is reducing the spread of COVID-19.

Chuck Todd, political director for NBC News and host of Meet The Press, told Boston Public Radio while this is encouraging, it shouldn't signify any change in social distancing guidelines just yet.

"They were ahead of the rest of the country in dealing with this, ahead of the rest of the country in shutting it down, and it does look like they're buying themselves enough time they'll have enough beds and may have enough ventilators," he said. "It doesn't mean they've stopped the virus. The hardest part of this is going to be once we show some success there's going to be this immediate, 'OK, I can relax now.' And the thing is, in order to keep the success you can't relax. That's going to be the next challenge we're going to face."