Fauci: Iowa's directives "functionally equivalent" to other states' stay-at-home orders

A member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force who had been critical of governors who had not issued explicit stay-at-home orders said he spoke to Iowa's governor on Monday and came away satisfied with her orders.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that he believes that Gov. Kim Reynolds is doing a good job of deciding what restrictions have been placed on Iowans as the novel coronavirus spreads in the state.

His remarks came during the White House's Monday, April 6, 2020, briefing, after he and Reynolds, along with Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, had spoken on the phone earlier in the day.

"I had good conversations with the governor of Nebraska and the governor of Iowa here. And it's interesting that functionally, even though they have not given a strict stay-at-home -- what they are doing is really functionally equivalent to that," Fauci said. "I think there was a public response that they weren't really doing anything at all. And they really are doing a very good job. Both of them. Those are the only two that I spoke to. But it was a really good conversation. I want to make sure people understand that just because they don't have a very strict stay-at-home order, they have in place a lot of things that are totally compatible with what everyone else is doing."

over the weekend that state which did not have a stay-at-home order in place are not putting the rest of the country at risk as much as they are putting themselves at risk. Those remarks followed on comments made to CNN last week when he said "I just don't understand why we're not" having stay-at-home orders.

, stating during a Friday, April 3, press conference that he may have been working with incomplete information.

"Maybe [Fauci] doesn't have all the information," Reynolds said on Friday. "You can't just look at a map and assume that no action has been taken. That is completely false."

Reynolds posted about the phone conversation on Twitter on Monday, saying she and Ricketts "had a productive and positive phone call" with Fauci.