Dr. Fauci, it's an honor for us to have you with us today.
And our students are excited to hear from you, and they put together a few questions that they'd like to get your thoughts on.
And I know you're busy so let's get started.
The first question is: What message would you like first-year college students to take away
from this current moment in our history?
Yeah, that's a very important question, and I think
an important message is that this terrible experience we're going through will end.
We will get through it.There will be vaccines. The public health measures will help contain it.
We want to make sure people don't get so discouraged that they feel it's futile
to adhere to the public health measures that we talk about because it seems like this has been an
almost seemingly endless journey that we've been going through.
And there is that tendency
to say, you know, it's an all-or-none phenomena. Either you're going to shut down completely and
do nothing, or just let things fly and not take any precautions.
Just be prudent and careful, kinds of things that we talk about that are universal, common denominators: Wearing of masks,
keeping physical distance, avoiding congregating in crowds, particularly in indoor settings.
Do things outdoors, much preferentially to indoors, washing your hands carefully and frequently.
If we do those seemingly simple things we can really prevent the kind of surges that we're seeing
right now throughout the country, and if we hang in there long enough there will
be a vaccine within a reasonable period of time.
So if we pull together we're going to get through this. That's really my message.
Great, thank you.
So, how do you think the coronavirus pandemic will change the ways we participate in society in the future?
Well, I hope that we do get, in fact, I know we will get back to some form of normality, the way it
used to be before December of 2019.
I don't think it necessarily needs to change how we look at things in the future,
except we now know something that we should have known all along — I've been saying it for literally decades, if I might say —
is that we are vulnerable to infectious diseases outbreaks.
They've occurred throughout history, they are occurring now, and they will continue to occur.
And I think we need to support the fundamental commitment of being prepared so that we have
lessons learned from this so that when our children or our grandchildren get confronted
with something similar, that they will be better prepared than we seem to have been prepared here.
Thank you.
You know the the public health data have made clear that COVID-19 pandemic does not
impact all communities equally, and how would you like to see this addressed?
Well, that's one of the real problems because it becomes a messaging problem.
I've been chasing infectious diseases, particularly viral outbreaks, my entire professional career and certainly for
the 36 years that I've been director of the Infectious Disease Institute at NIH.
I've never seen a single pathogen, a virus, with such a broad range of manifestations, where 40 percent of the
people would have no symptoms and then those who do have symptoms, the majority have mild symptoms.
And then there are those who wind up either getting severe symptoms, hospitalization, intensive care and debt.
There really is a very wide spectrum, so some people take this lightly and don't think
it's particularly serious when there've been 225,000 deaths in our country
with well over 8 million, close to 9 million, infections. Globally, there's been 1.2 million deaths worldwide.
This is a very serious infection. Yet, particularly among young people, and that's one of the reasons why
I said yes to this discussion, because I do want to reach out to the young people,
college-age people, because they're the healthiest among us, usually. If they get infected they may be
under the false impression that it doesn't make any difference if i get infected, my symptoms
might be none or very minor. So I'm in a vacuum, it doesn't make any difference to the rest of society.
That is really not correct because if you don't take care and protect yourself from infection,
you are inadvertently, and even innocently, propagating the pandemic.
Whereas you may not get sick, you may not get any symptoms.
But the chances are that you will pass it on to someone else who'll pass it on
to someone else who then is vulnerable.
That may be someone's grandparent. That may be someone's wife
who's undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer. That may be a child who's immunodeficient.
So we've got to take not only a personal responsibility to protect ourselves, we've got to be aware of our
societal responsibility for not being propagators of the outbreak by becoming part of the solution as opposed to part of the problem.
So if there's any one message that I give to college students, it's that
you can help bring this to an end by protecting yourself.
Thank you.
So, the next question is what are the next steps once a vaccine is created, and how can we ensure
that the vaccine will be distributed equitably around the country?
Well, that's a good question and there are advisory committees that are setting a prioritization, and
this has been traditionally done when vaccines are needed and are in short supply.
It's called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
And in addition, this year the National Academy of Medicine
has weighed in on that to make an order of prioritization.
So the first that will get it are health care workers who are putting their own health at risk to take care of people.
Then there are those who have very important, critical jobs to keep society going.
Then there are those who have underlying medical conditions that make them more prone to a serious event associated with COVID-19.
Then there are the elderly, and then there are the rest of the people in society.
So, a big emphasis on our campus right now is something that we call Protecting Our Herd.
You may know that our mascot is a buffalo, so that's the Protecting Our Herd.
And in the Health, Society and Wellness class where we'll be sharing this video, there's a strong focus on community.
And one of the skills that's taught is compassion. And how do you think about compassion as a
clinician and a public health expert?
Well, I think compassion and empathy for those who are ill or
those who are suffering is a very important part of one's character in the sense of the motivation
of why you do the things you do to protect society.
And I think you just mentioned this idea of the
herd, of protecting the vulnerable in the herd. That's something that we need to do.
And that gets back to what I mentioned just a moment ago about, you can express and reflect your compassion
by assuming societal responsibility to protect yourselves and therefore protecting others.
Because we're all in this together, and that's all part of compassion and empathy.
So, on a personal note our students want to know how you stay well physically and mentally
during this challenging time, and what are some key strategies that you use in your own life?
Well, I may not be a good example because I'm probably pushing myself to the limit because of the
responsibilities I have, but one of the things that I do and have tried to do all my life is to
maintain a balance, particularly physical exercise. I'm a runner, I've run marathons and run 10Ks
throughout my life. I don't do that much now in a competitive basis, but I certainly
every day try to, you know, decompress myself a bit by exercising. But also try and maintain a positive
attitude to the best you can, always look at the positive side of things, and develop relationships
with people who can be supportive of you and you of them. I'm fortunate that I have a very good and
strong relationship with my life partner, my wife, who's got more common sense than
I do and makes sure that I do things that aren't destructive to my health, so I think I
stay healthy because I'm listening to somebody who's paying more attention to this than I am.
So, our last question, our students would like to hear about your path to becoming the leading
infectious disease expert in our country. What did you plan to major in when you started college,
and what was your path toward infectious disease, and were there any particular events that led you to where you are today?
Oh, those are good questions.
My path to medicine and science is a little bit indirect. I was very struck by, because I went
to Jesuit high school and Jesuit college, by the classics. So I studied years of Greek and Latin and
romance languages and philosophy, and I was very struck by the humanitarian issues and humanism.
And I was very interested in the human species as a species, studying it historically and otherwise.
I also liked science, so I thought the best way I could combine my affinity for the humanities
and humanitarian proclivities that I have with my love of science, and I
thought the best way to do that would be to be a physician. And then I enjoyed very much
the concept of infectious diseases because of the potential impact they have on influencing
civilizations, if you look historically with smallpox and polio and the plague
and measles has done in fashioning different areas of our civilization throughout the world,
I found that very exciting. As well as the acute nature of it, something you can do about it.
You can prevent infectious diseases and you could treat infectious diseases.
Probably the thing that changed the direction of my career the most in influencing me
was back in 1981 when the very first cases of what
would turn out to be HIV were recognized, first in Los Angeles, then in New York and San Francisco.
That I changed the total direction of my career and devoted the next couple of decades of my life
to studying and taking care of HIV-infected individuals. And that really got me on the course
where I am now of being a public health official as well as a scientist and a clinician in infectious diseases.
It's the things that come into your life that are unpredictable, that you can't
plan for, that ultimately have a very important impact on the direction that you take in
your career, so I can tell the students at your institution: Keep an open mind for unanticipated
events, things that happen that, if you're ready for it and well prepared for it, particularly with
the kind of good education that you're getting at your institution, that you should make sure
you keep an open mind to follow the direction of those unanticipated roads that open for you.
Dr. Fauci, I want to thank you so much for spending time with us today
and for everything you're doing to keep us safe. We very much appreciate it and
again, thank you so much for the time that you spent with us. I know our students are going to enjoy it immensely. Thank you.
You're quite welcome. Thank you for having me.