How’s retirement going for you? What are you liking about it and what are you not liking about it?
You mention in the documentary how, during your time under Trump, you would regularly receive late-night calls from a blocked number that was always Trump, who would then proceed to berate you for clarifying the disinformation he spread about Covid. What was the wackiest late-night call you got from Trump?
Well, I wouldn’t say “wacky.” It just was one of those things where the tension between me and the president — less so the president than the people around him, but he felt strongly about [Covid] — put me in this uncomfortable position. We’d be up there on the podium of the press room in the White House, and the president would get up and say something like, “Hydroxychloroquine is going to be a cure,” or “the virus is going to disappear like magic next month,” and then, since I would be standing there with him, the press would say, “What do you think, Dr. Fauci?” And, in order to preserve my own personal and professional integrity, but more importantly to fulfill my obligation to the American public as a public health official, I had to do something very uncomfortable, which was say, “No I’m sorry, I disagree. Hydroxychloroquine does not work. And it won’t disappear like magic.” Then, the press would call me up and ask me to amplify on that, and I would go through the data on why it’s clear that this isn’t going to disappear, and why there’s no evidence whatsoever that hydroxychloroquine, or bleach, or anything else works. [Trump] would read that in the paper and call me and go, “Why can’t you be more positive about it?” and my response would be, “Gulp, I’m sorry I can’t be, because I need to be responsible about it.”
You looked like your soul was leaving your body during those press conferences.
Yup. Yup… It’s uncomfortable because the far-right have interpreted that as I was nefariously trying to harm Trump, which absolutely was the furthest thing from the truth. I’m fundamentally about science. So, they didn’t understand that I didn’t like the fact that I had to get up and contradict the President of the United States. It’s not like I did it, went home to my wife, and said, “Hey, look what I did today!” That’s not how it happened. It was a very uncomfortable situation to be in. (...)
Do you feel like we’re taking Covid seriously enough right now in America? Most of the country just seemed to reach the point of “enough is enough,” and the Biden administration even declared the pandemic “over.”
Well, I think we have to put it in the context that we’re in an unprecedented situation. In 1918, the historic pandemic influenza was even worse than this. It killed 50-100 million people worldwide. But we’ve never had a situation as serious as this that’s lasted now going into its fourth year. We are in year four. It started in January of 2020. Having said that, we are tired of Covid. Everybody wants to put Covid in the rearview mirror and say, “We’re done with it,” so it’s a natural, understandable, though not necessarily correct viewpoint that we’re out of the woods. One thing is true: We’re much better off now than we were a year and a half ago. A year and a half ago, we were getting 800,000-900,000 infections and 3,000-4,000 deaths. Today, we’re having 300-400 deaths a day. Even though that’s much better than where we were, it’s not where the endgame should be. Because that means you’re talking about up to 3,000 deaths per week, which is really a high level. So, to your point: Are we underestimating Covid now? Yes, because we’re so used to it that we’re accepting a level of infection and death that under any other circumstance would be alarming. (...)
There’s a candid moment in the documentary where you apologize for your messaging on masking early on in the pandemic. On March 8, 2020, you said, “Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.” Wouldn’t common sense lead you to believe that masking was good, since it was so effective in battling SARS-CoV-1?
The point I was trying to make was that my statements in January, February, and early March were based on data as we knew it. We did not know aerosol transmission occurred. We did not know that 50 to 60 percent of the transmission were from those asymptomatic. We were told there was a shortage of masks. There were no studies to show that masks actually work. So, when I said, “I don’t think people should be wearing masks,” I based that on the data that we had. However, as the months went by and it became clear, a) that there’s no shortage of masks, b) aerosol transmission is important, c) many studies show that masks work, and d) 50 to 60 percent of the transmissions occur from someone with no symptoms, I changed my mind and said masks should be worn. You can say that’s flip-flopping — I guess you could — but it really is following the data. Now, the reason that I sort of apologized in the documentary is about something you said: Common sense should have told us early on that you’re not sure masking works, but why not wear ‘em? That’s probably what I should have said back then. Common sense should have told us early on that it can’t hurt and likely can help.
by Marlow Stern, Rolling Stone | Read more:
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