President Biden’s chief medical advisor, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told Axios on HBO that, despite the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines, emerging variants can pose an “obstacle” and Americans should not become complacent.
Driving the news: The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also shared his ideas on how to address his own mortality, working with Biden and talking to teachers about returning to school before everyone was vaccinated.
Fauci called suffering and the death of the last “stunning” months, with January and December the worst months since the beginning. “The number of cases was between 300,000 and 400,000 a day,” he said. “The death toll was between 3,000 and 4,000 a day.”
- Although “things are going in the right direction … we will also be challenged by the appearance of variants or mutants that have appeared, some of which have a functional influence on how we will respond to them,” he said. “Fortunately, others are well covered by the vaccine, but not all.”
- “You don’t want people to become complacent. We still have a long way to go … We may still have an obstacle with the appearance of variants that would dominate the picture.”
The other side: Fauci, who was vaccinated, expressed optimism that the more Americans who receive their doses, friends or relatives who have been vaccinated will finally be able to meet as they would like.
- “Can I ask my daughter to come from Boston, which I haven’t seen in a long time?” he said. “Can I sit and have dinner with her without worrying about spreading the infection? Can I give her a big hug the way I like it? I think the final answer will probably be yes, but I think we’ll wait and see what the recommendations show. “
When talking to teachers, Fauci said: “You have to understand and empathize with them, that they care about their own safety, so you cannot minimize it.”
- “We also need to fight for resources to allow schools to open safely. So, providing masks, good ventilation, and good spacing of the seats, all together will make schools open safely. “
- He said of his task of providing guidance to all Americans: “It is sometimes humiliating because you have to make a decision based on incomplete data.”
Fauci, 80, said he faced his fears that the virus could catch him, especially during Donald Trump’s presidency.
- “I didn’t settle for it, but it was in the back of my mind because I had to be there,” he said. “I mean, especially when I went to the White House every day, when the White House was a kind of local over-distribution.”
- He said he is committed to telling any president harsh truths, but he is not too concerned now because Biden is “very attached to the concept of ‘rules of science’ and you act based on what the scientific evidence and data says Do.”
The final result: Fauci said he is aware that for some he is a cultural icon, while others have made threats against him and his family – but he tries to block them both and stay focused on the pandemic. “At the moment, my responsibility is, from a scientific point of view, to do everything I can to end this.”