Fauci: the US political division over masks led to half a million COVID-19 deaths

Anthony FauciAnthony FauciPublix offers employees who receive the COVID-19 vaccine a gift card from 5 stores at Sunday shows – COVID-19 dominates when a dark milestone approaches Fauci: 500,000 coronavirus death ‘devastating’ milestone MORE, the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, said on Monday that the political divide around the use of masks contributed to the count of coronavirus deaths in the United States.

Fauci made the comments on the same day that the death toll in the country reached half a million people a year after the pandemic began. Calling the terrible milestone “impressive” in an interview with Reuters, Fauci said the mask division, which divided Americans politically during a presidential election year, made the public health measure a political statement.

“Even under the best of circumstances, that would have been a very serious problem,” said Fauci.

“However, this does not explain how a rich and sophisticated country can have the highest percentage of deaths and be the most affected country in the world,” said Fauci.

Fauci also considered “incomprehensible” the disrespect of some governors and mayors on how to reopen the country safely after quasi-national blockades last spring.

“When the American spirit is so divided, it really makes me sad,” he said.

Although Fauci did not blame the former Trump administration entirely, he noted that “the lack of involvement of the top leadership in trying to do everything that was based on science was clearly detrimental to the effort.”

Although the United States has 4% of the world’s population, almost 20% of all coronavirus deaths are reported, according to Reuters.

“This is the worst thing that has happened to this country with regard to the nation’s health in over 100 years,” said Fauci.

Fauci told Reuters that it is difficult to predict when the pandemic will end due to the emergence of new variants of the coronavirus in South Africa and Brazil. Some studies have indicated that these strains are more resistant to existing coronavirus vaccines.

Fauci suggested that Americans could restore pre-pandemic life until Christmas, but warned that the restrictions could last until next year.