“I am afraid that if you start to back off and philosophize about things, you could take your attention away from the work we have,” he told CNN. “So, I’ll leave the philosophizing for another day.”
Fauci’s work is now formidable. Nearly 120,000 Americans woke up Thursday at the hospital with Covid-19, a record for the pandemic. On Wednesday, more than 3,000 people died of the virus.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has a very clear message for the country: “Limit travel as much as possible [and] don’t get together at big dinners and celebrations. ”
He will follow his own advice on birthday and Christmas.
“I really feel that I need to practice what I preach to the country,” he said. “Although I really loved having my children, who live in different parts of the country, [to] come together and have a party for my birthday and Christmas, I don’t think it’s the most prudent thing to do, so I’ll have a quiet dinner with my wife and we’ll zoom in on the kids. ”
He knows that what he is asking people is not easy. He knows that it is difficult to stay away from the people you love, especially during holidays, or major events like big birthdays.
“I definitely feel sad,” he said. “I have three daughters, aged between 20 and 30, [and] This is the first Christmas holiday season and my birthday that I have not spent with my daughters since they were born. So, [it] it’s sad, but we all try to have an optimistic attitude. ”
He and his family cling to the idea that there will be a big meeting – but not now.
“Next year, hopefully, at this point, we will have a real celebration in person with a lot of hugs that we can’t do right now,” he said. “We will hope for better times.”
And when those better times come, he said, “let’s make the most of it.”
Fauci’s worst nightmare
Fauci calls this initial training “really extremely exciting and rewarding”.
In 1968, he started at the National Institutes of Health, where he learned “the ins and outs” of infectious diseases and immunology.
He says his work in the HIV epidemic “has both transformed my professional career and my life and has defined me as a doctor, scientist and public health professional”.
For decades before Covid-19, Fauci said his worst nightmare was what happened this year.
“A new virus that emerges, probably from an animal reservoir, of respiratory origin, that has the ability to spread very, very, very efficiently among humans and that has a high degree of morbidity and mortality,” he said. “That was my worst nightmare, but you don’t anticipate or expect your worst nightmare to come true.”
Working ’18 -7 ‘
Since that nightmare began to unfold in mid-January 2020, Fauci said he has not taken a day off.
“The days just merge. You lose track of time. I think a lot of people have gone through what I experienced. “Sometimes you wake up in the morning and for a brief moment you ask yourself – ‘Is it July? Is it March? Or is it really December? ‘ – because you are so concerned with what you are doing. ”
When asked how he copes with this intensity at the age of 80, he says his energy levels have not changed much since he was young.
“I have always been a very energetic person,” he said. “When I was 20, 30 and 40, I had unlimited energy. It doesn’t seem to have decreased much.”
When asked if he works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Fauci laughs.
“Well, not 24-7, but more like 18-7,” he said.
Does the almost constant work wear you out?
“I imagine so – I don’t pay attention to its wear and tear. I think I get quite exhausted at times, but keep going,” said Fauci. “You just have to dig deep and swallow because the problem itself is so huge that it requires you to put a total effort into it.”
Fauci will move forward in the new year as medical assistant to President-elect Joe Biden.
“I think that sooner or later I will have to [retire]. I don’t see that clearly now in my future, “he said.
He says the only thing that lies ahead is “the challenge we face today” to get out “of this terrible pandemic in which we are totally immersed”.