Anthony Fauci, the top public health expert on the White House coronavirus taskforce, is determined to get his message out. Despite the White House reportedly blocking TV interviews, and political forces undercutting him from Donald Trump down, the doctor who has served six presidents spent this week speaking out online.
Here are five highlights:
‘We haven’t even begun to see the end of it yet’
On Monday, Fauci talked to Lloyd Minor, dean of medicine at Stanford University, in what was billed as a virtual fireside chat.
Fauci added: “Look at the films on TV of people in some states going from shutdown to completely throwing caution to the wind … there are things you can do now: physical distancing, wearing a mask, avoiding crowds, washing hands. Those things, as simple as they are, can turn it around.”
‘I think you can trust me’
On Tuesday, Fauci sat for a virtual forum staged by Georgetown University.
He said: “Republican, Democrat, anybody else, we are all in this together. I believe for the most part you can trust respected medical authorities. I believe I’m one of them, so I think you can trust me … [and other experts] who have a track record of telling the truth.”
‘Stop this nonsense’
On Wednesday, the Atlantic magazine interviewed Fauci about the administration’s pandemic response, Donald Trump and White House aides seeking to undermine him, and his professional future.
“It is a bit bizarre,” he said. “The divisiveness that’s going on … We’ve got to own this, reset this and say, ‘OK, let’s stop this nonsense. We’ve got to do better.”
States and the federal government must be on the same page, Fauci said. “So, rather than these games people are playing, let’s focus on that.”
He added: “I just want to do my job … and I’m going to keep doing it.”
‘You’re propagating the pandemic’
On Thursday, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg interviewed Fauci on his own platform. Again, the doctor lambasted state lawmakers rushing to reopen and young people crowding bars or staging parties without masks or social distancing.
“Time out,” he said. “Look what’s happened … there really is no reason that we’re having 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 [new US cases a day], other than we are not doing something correctly.”
He also told revelers it’s “not just you in a vacuum. You’re propagating the pandemic”.
‘We need to get better control’
On Friday, talking to the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation in Washington, Fauci said the US had been hit “very severely” by the coronavirus. Hospitalizations and deaths are rising. But, Fauci said, controlling Covid-19 and reopening the economy do not have to be mutually exclusive.
“We’ve got to have a delicate balance of carefully and prudently going towards normality and opening up at the same time that we contain and not allow these surges,” he said.
“Staying shut down has economic, employment, health and other negative consequences that are significant [but] we need to get better control.”
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
