Tag: Dr. Fauci

Fauci clashes with Rand Paul over masks

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The nation’s top infectious diseases doctor Anthony Fauci on Thursday clashed with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) over the need for people to continue wearing masks once they’ve already been infected with or vaccinated against COVID-19.

“You’re telling everyone to wear a mask,” Paul said. “If we’re not spreading the infection, isn’t it just theater? You have the vaccine and you’re wearing two masks, isn’t that theater?”

“Here we go again with the theater,” an exasperated Fauci responded. “Let’s get down to the facts.” Continue reading.

Fauci urges Trump to tell supporters to be vaccinated

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The nation’s top infectious disease expert warned Sunday that a new wave of COVID-19 infections could be on the way while urging former President Trump to tell his supporters to be vaccinated.

Speaking with Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday,” Anthony Fauci pointed to surges across the European Union and warned that Europe’s case trends tend to be a few weeks ahead of similar trends in the U.S.

Europe “always seem to be a few weeks ahead of us,” Fauci said, adding that it was “absolutely no time to declare victory” over the virus. Continue reading.

S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem says she nailed the pandemic response. Fauci: The numbers ‘don’t lie.’

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South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), a conservative favorite, received a standing ovation at the Conservative Political Action Conference when she criticized Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for being “wrong a lot” — which the nation’s top infectious-disease expert said was unhelpful.

While making a dig at Fauci at the Orlando conference, Noem touted her personal liberties approach to the coronavirus pandemic, forgoing recommendations to mandate masks and instead allowing a massive motorcycle rally later tied to a national surge in infections. Despite Noem’s claims of success, her state has reported more infections per resident than any state besides North Dakota.

“South Dakota is the only state in America that never ordered a single business or church to close,” she said to applause and cheers. “We never instituted a shelter-in-place order. We never mandated that people wear masks. We never even defined what an essential business is.” Continue reading.

Fauci unloads on Trump: ‘He did things that were terrible’ when I contradicted him

Dr. Anthony Fauci unloaded on former President Donald Trump in an interview with the UK newspaper The Telegraph.

Throughout the interview, Fauci recounted how his former boss would routinely take bad advice on how to handle the novel coronavirus pandemic and would act out whenever anyone with expertise contradicted him.

“When it became clear that in order to maintain my integrity and to get the right message [across] I had to publicly disagree with him, he did things — or allowed things to happen — that were terrible,” Fauci told the paper. “Like he allowed Peter Navarro [Trump’s trade adviser] to write an editorial in USA Today saying that almost everything I’ve ever said was wrong.” Continue reading.

Fauci says it’s ‘liberating’ working under Biden

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Anthony Fauci on Thursday said it has been “liberating” to work as the nation’s top infectious diseases doctor under President Biden after his experience working for former President Trump.

Speaking at the White House press briefing, Fauci was asked if he feels “less constrained” in the new administration after clashing with Trump and eventually being sidelined last year.

“I can tell you I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president, so it was really something that you didn’t feel you could actually say something and there wouldn’t be any repercussions about it,” he said. “The idea that you can get up here and talk about what you know, what the evidence and science is, and know that’s it — let the science speak — it is somewhat of a liberating feeling.” Continue reading.

Biden asked Fauci to serve as chief medical adviser

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President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday asked Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, to serve as his chief medical adviser. 

Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview that he asked Fauci to serve in the position in addition to staying on in his longtime role as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 

“I asked him to stay on the exact same role he’s had for the past several presidents, and I asked him to be a chief medical adviser for me as well, and be part of the COVID team,” Biden told the network in his first joint interview with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris since the election.  Continue reading.

Trump labels Fauci a ‘disaster’ on campaign call

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President Trump derided Anthony Fauci as a “disaster” and claimed that Americans have tired of the novel coronavirus during a call with campaign staff on Monday.

“People are tired of COVID. Yup, there’s going to be spikes, there’s going to be no spikes, there’s going to be vaccines. With or without vaccines, people are tired of COVID,” Trump said on the private call, according to audio obtained by The Hill. “I have the biggest rallies I have ever had and we have COVID. People are saying whatever, just leave us alone. They’re tired of it.”

Trump then accused Fauci, the top U.S. infectious diseases expert, of providing inconsistent advice about the coronavirus pandemic and claimed baselessly that if he had followed all of Fauci’s advice the United States would have “700,000 to 800,000 deaths right now.” Continue reading.

Trump again attacks Fauci’s guidance as coronavirus infections tick upward

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President Trump’s long-fraught relationship with Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist, ruptured again this week in an ugly public dispute just as U.S. coronavirus cases have ticked past 50,000 per day and with three weeks left in a campaign dominated by the government’s response to the pandemic.

Trump on Tuesday responded to Fauci’s warnings that the president’s decision to resume campaign rallies this week was “very troublesome” by mocking him in a tweet that unfavorably compared his medical guidance to his errant ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals game in July.

“Actually, Tony’s pitching arm is far more accurate than his prognostications,” Trump wrote, erroneously suggesting that Fauci’s advice in the early days of the pandemic that the public need not wear masks meant that the doctor was playing down the novel coronavirus. Continue reading.

Fauci finally loses his patience with Rand Paul

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Whenever Sen. Rand Paul and Anthony S. Fauci appear at the same hearing together, they are bound to clash. In May, they tangled over children’s susceptibility to the coronavirus. In June, Paul attacked Fauci for not being more optimistic about the coronavirus, saying that Fauci wasn’t the “end-all” and that he should be more humble about what he didn’t know.

Through it all, Fauci has been characteristically diplomatic. But on Wednesday, he seemed to reach his breaking point.

Paul (R-Ky.), as he often has, questioned the strict mitigation measures that states across the country had undertaken. He accused Fauci of being too laudatory of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D), noting that Cuomo’s state experienced one of the worst outbreaks in the world. Continue reading.

‘You’re not listening’: Dr. Fauci schools Rand Paul live during heated Senate COVID-19 hearing

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, became embroiled in a heated exchange with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), defending his professional expertise and his public health agency’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci testified before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) on Wednesday where his expertise was challenged by the Republican senator. Paul, an ophthalmologist, criticized the infectious disease expert for applauding New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for his handling of the coronavirus. Emphasizing that New York still has the highest state death toll in the United States, Paul insisted Cuomo had not done a great job mitigating the spread of the coronavirus in his state.

“You’ve been a big fan of Cuomo and the shutdown in New York,” Paul pushed back. “You’ve lauded New York for their policy. New York has had the highest death rate in the world. How can be jumping up and down saying Cuomo did a great job?” Continue reading.