The Guardian
Dr. Anthony Fauci turns 80 – and even his birthday surprise followed Covid’s rules
The wife of America’s chief public health officer, herself a bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health, had to be creative this year Anthony Fauci, the light that guides the United States through the darkness of Covid-19, turns 80 today, eve from Christmas. Not that this is the time to throw a big party. Not when the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) was the main voice, calling for faithful adherence to social distance measures. Still, Fauci’s 35-year-old wife, Christine Grady, the National Bio Institutes’ leading bioethics would not miss the chance to give her husband an ethical surprise. “She is a genius at deceiving me,” Fauci told the Guardian. “I mean, it is very difficult to fool me. But she threw surprise birthday parties for my 50s, 60s and 70s. For having me at work and suddenly, ‘Come home. We have to do something. You have to go out to dinner. ‘I go home and there are people from all over the country. This year the couple agreed with their three adult daughters, who live in different cities, that like Thanksgiving Day, there would be no homecoming at Christmas, no birthday party in person with the patriarch. “Because I’ve been telling the country to limit travel,” said Fauci, “and I don’t want to be one of those health workers who tell the world to do something and then they go out and throw a party themselves. ”So, avoiding the scandal by simply practicing what her husband wisely preaches, Grady told Fauci that on Christmas Eve the two of them would have a quiet birthday dinner at home and then celebrate with their children online.> Happy Birthday Dr Fauci 💕 pic.twitter.com/fhdVvtHvvy >> – Dr. Jill Biden (@DrBiden) December 24, 2020Fauci works seven days a week. Last Sunday, Grady told her husband that he needed to get home from the office at 5:30 pm so that they could check in regularly with their daughters. threats to my life here, “said Fauci, referring naturally to one of the most extraordinary and alarming facts of his life under a global pandemic and the rise of right-wing extremism.” The outside agent says, ‘Uh, it’s getting to be five o’clock. You need to be home at 5:30. ‘I said,’ Don’t worry, I’m fine. ‘ ”The agent, he said, persisted:“ No, no, no. Your wife said you need to be home at 5:30 pm. “I should have known what’s going on,” said Fauci. But the birthday boy still had no idea that something sneaky was going on. And then, the clumsy Fauci ended up going into his home office to find that – “Surprise!” – an enlarged array of 15 or more of his closest friends clamored on his computer. Grady had arranged for them to call from all over the United States, as well as from Italy, Switzerland and the Caribbean, all to celebrate the man who even now, a newly minted octogenarian, is primarily responsible for helping to ensure that birthday parties a year from now they can be carried out safely in person again. “So, what am I doing on my birthday?” he said. “I already did it.”