We are not in total control right now the Trump's handling of coronavirus, says Dr. Fauci

The United States found itself increasingly isolated from the world Tuesday as COVID-19 continued to spread across southern and western states.

With America's coronavirus death toll climbing to nearly 127,000, the European Union lifted travel restrictions for 15 countries but not the U.S.

Even China, where the deadly pandemic is believed to have started back in December, made the EU's cut of countries where the rate of infection is deemed low enough to allow people from those places to travel into the bloc.

"The way in which the current American administration has dealt with the virus, I don't think it would be responsible for any European leader to basically let Americans in at the moment," former Finnish prime minister Alexander Stubb told NBC News.

President Donald Trump waited until March 13 to declare a national emergency and has been pushing aggressively to get the country's economy moving again, even as health experts are warning that the pandemic could still get worse.

“We can't just focus on those areas that are having the surge, it puts the entire country at risk," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in his Tuesday testimony before Congress. "We're now having 40-plus thousand new cases a day. I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around and so I'm very concerned.”

Young people, in particular, are at risk, Fauci told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“What we saw were a lot of people who maybe felt that because they think they are invulnerable, and we know many young people are not because they're getting serious disease, that therefore they're getting infected has nothing at all to do with anyone else, when in fact it does,” he said

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said we only have ourselves to blame for the continuing contagion.

"We can continue to reopen, to get back to work, get back to school, get back to healthcare, but we have to act responsibly as individuals," Azar said on Fox Business Network. "If we simply do three things: Practice social distancing, wear facial coverings when we can't social distance, and practice proper personal hygiene. If we do those three things, we can turn around the tide of these new cases and continue to reopen."

Trump and his allies have previously blamed the rise in numbers on an increase in testing -- a claim many health experts have dismissed as untrue.

As states like Alabama, Texas, Florida and California continued to report huge numbers of new cases, other states like New York and New Jersey that have been able to flatten the curve were putting off plans to reopen its bars and restaurants.

“This virus indoors is a whole different beast than it is outdoors,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said on "Today." “Our numbers have come way down, probably as much as any American state, but we paid a huge price as you mentioned, 15,000 fatalities. We've gone through hell. The last thing we want to do is go through hell again."

Health experts agree that closing down bars and restaurants was wise.

“I’m delighted they’re closing some of them,” John Swartzberg, a professor emeritus of infectious disease and vaccinology at the University of California, Berkeley, told NBC News on Monday. “I’m disappointed they’re not closing more. The reason I’m delighted is because the highest risk for people is being in an enclosed area for a prolonged period of time. Bars are a perfect setup for that.”

In Washington D.C., powerful Republicans who had been reluctant to require Americans to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 were suddenly donning them and urging everyone else to do the same.