fame came late to anthony fauci already
79 years old he went from being an
obscure public health doctor
to a worldwide celebrity in just a few
weeks
as the u.s and the world searched
desperately for a reliable guide to the
unfolding pandemic
one name came to the fore dr anthony
fauci dr anthony fouch
dr anthony fauci dr fouchy was often put
in a difficult position
either back some of the president's less
than scientific pronouncements
or criticized
there is a real risk that you will
trigger an
outbreak if you may not be able to
control dr anthony fauci to throw out
the first pitch what up some republicans
is that dr fauci seemed to enjoy his
fame
although he clearly had no future in
baseball many in congress thought his
accuracy
early in the pandemic had been no better
than his pitching army
he loves being on television we let him
do it sometimes he says things are a
little bit off and they get
built up unfortunately but he's a nice
guy i like him but he's called a lot of
bad
calls he said don't wear a mask the
president
was referring to this interview from
march right now in the united states
people should not be walking around with
masks so dr fatchi it's saturday morning
and the white house pointed out other
times at the start of the pandemic
when dr fauci had apparently made the
wrong call
in late february he was advising against
a lockdown
no right now at this moment there is no
need to change
anything that you're doing on a
day-by-day basis but by mid-april he
seemed to suggest
he'd wanted a lockdown in february but
had encountered resistance obviously
if we had right from the very beginning
shut everything down
it may have been a little bit different
but there was a lot of pushback about
shutting things down back then
according to polling trust in dr fauci
was very high
and broadly similar between republicans
and democrats in april of this year
80 percent of democrats and 77 percent
of republicans
told pollsters that they had a great
deal or a fair amount of trust in dr
fauci
but by september a huge chasm had
emerged between the two groups
whilst democrat trust had increased to
86 percent
republican trust slipped back to just 48
percent
fauci is too useful to the biden
campaign so until november fauci's word
must be
law even when it doesn't make sense
at one of the final trump election
rallies the crowd made their feelings
clear
don't tell anybody but let me wait till
a little bit after the election
[Applause]
today america began rolling out the fisa
vaccine the first to get it
were health workers however trust in the
vaccine is far from universal
part of the problem is that many
americans no longer trust the advice of
public health officials like dr fauci
david grossman reporting there well
earlier we spoke to dr anthony fauci
and i began by asking him whether the
daily death toll of
3 000 americans every day from
coronavirus
which now eclipses the death toll seen
in the first
wave is the peak of this crisis
well i hope it does not go any more than
that we've really been hit
very very hard a series of circumstances
took an already difficult situation and
made it worse
namely the onset of the colder weather
where people are doing things indoors
more than outdoors number one
number two our thanksgiving holiday
where people traveled and congregated in
family settings of you know large
dinners and social gatherings
and now we're entering into the
christmas hanukkah christmas season
which i'm quite concerned that the
spike that we saw and that we're
continuing to see
might even amplify and get worse
as we go into the christmas holidays so
i think the month
of the rest of december and into january
are going to be very very difficult
months for us
can i ask you you've mentioned
thanksgiving of course it's a huge thing
in the u.s but
not here but what lessons would you say
that gives for christmas uh with people
in the uk
and other parts of of europe looking
forward to that time as a family time
what
would your advice be yeah my advice
would be something that i think
is going to sadden people because
everyone wants
the family warmth and get-together that
is so characteristic
of the christmas season but my
recommendation would be to curtail
traveling as much as you possibly can
visiting people even though it's such an
important part
of the christmas spirit keep the
gatherings the dinners and the indoor
gatherings to as few people as possible
preferably for people
that are an integral part of the
household and avoid the kind of
congregate settings that have been so
characteristic
i know that's so difficult to expect
except because people
already have what we call coverage
fatigue they're just
tired of not leaving a normal life and
when you're telling them
in the christmas holidays which
traditionally is the time of gathering
together
in the warmth of a family and friends
atmosphere
we're saying to the best of your
possibility don't do that
i know that's tough but i believe that's
the only way we're going to prevent an
even greater surge
than we're already seeing it's it's a
cancel christmas message in effect or
postpone it
yeah in some respects it is
unfortunately
when you look back i know even quite
early on
you uh said that there were mitigations
that could have been put in place
sooner i'm thinking of the springtime
february march
april what is it that you most regret
about how the u.s went into this crisis
if you could change one thing what would
it be
you know it would be getting more of a
uniformity of response
if you look at the various slopes
that the united states experienced by
slope i mean the inflection
of cases going up we got hit very badly
in the very early spring mostly in the
new york metropolitan area in the
northeastern corridor
when that was able to get under control
and go down
then we stayed at a baseline that was
really very
not not acceptable at all we had about
20 000 new cases a day it never went
below that and then when we try to
so-called open the country or open the
economy
towards the early summer what we had was
a splurge of cases
that were associated with states not
adhering to the recommended cautious
prudent way
of how you open the economy how big a
factor was
the president's behavior in the
spreading of this virus
you know i think that you know rather
than concentrate on the president's
behavior
it looks at what the result was that we
in the united states
have 50 states it's a federalist society
that independence of states
is in many respects a good thing except
when you have a common
problem in recent weeks you've had a
president who seemed more interested in
playing golf
than than giving strong public messages
on this
well you know i cannot comment on that
i'm just trying
you know how difficult that is we're
we're really in a very difficult
situation we have
a lot of divisiveness here in the united
states we have some
sections of the country who despite the
fact
that there are hospitals that are on the
verge of being overrun with cases and
the need
for more health care providers who are
trained for more
intensive care beds who still believe
that this isn't real that it's a hoax
that it's not really something serious
it's astounding
to me as a physician a scientist and a
healthcare provider
to see that even in the places that are
the hardest hit
they don't seem to appreciate and look
at the data that's staring them right in
the face that we are going through a
very difficult period right now
do you think america's ability to
recognize
that and to unite around public health
messages
has declined during that long period
that 36 years you've had in that post
yeah you know what happens uh
public health outbreaks um
pandemics are difficult enough under the
best of circumstances
when you have profound divisiveness
in society where you have a public
health response that
in some respects becomes politicized
where wearing a mask or not becomes a
political statement
where avoiding crowds or not becomes a
political statement
it makes it extremely difficult
to get one's control of what in and of
itself
even under the best of circumstances
would be a challenging outbreak so in
the 36 years
that i have been the director of the
infectious disease institute and have
been involved
in outbreaks ranging from hiv to zika to
ebola to pandemic flu this has been the
most difficult from the standpoint
of the seriousness and the enormity of
it under such a truncated period of time
but also trying to get a coordinated
response
it just is very very difficult now
he uh president-elect biden is promising
focus
he's rolled out a policy mask wearing
for the first hundred days
do you think he's going to make a real
difference
i hope so i mean it's important that we
go in the right direction in this i
think the vaccine
is going to be a very important
component of that
i think you have to give credit to the
current administration with operation
warp speed to be able to
come through this with a vaccine that is
highly efficacious so you've got to give
credit where credit is due
i believe with the vaccine and good
public health measures that are
uniformly adhered to
i believe that we will go in the right
direction we've been hearing this
afternoon from our own health secretary
about a new variant
of the coronavirus uh we're not quite
sure whether he's referring to 614g
or one of the other mutations that have
been discussed in the scientific
literature
but are you confident that vaccines like
fires are beyond tech or astrazeneca
will
be efficacious against these mutations
we're now seeing
uh i mean obviously one can never be
overconfident but i feel
from my experience with viruses over the
years that
when you see mutations in an rna virus
whether or not it modifies the function
very frequently it has nothing to do
with the efficacy of a vaccine for
example
the 614 ddg mutation
is one that in fact when you look at the
binding site of the antibodies that are
made from the vaccine
it doesn't look at all like it's going
to negatively impact the efficacy
of the vaccine if another mutation comes
along
we'll see what happens with it but thus
far we've not had any serious challenge
to the efficacy of a vaccine based on
mutations that occur
in an rna virus lastly you
uh made some comment before uh about
the uk moving ahead with licensing of
of the fisa beyond tech vaccine which
you then withdrew
and you corrected those remarks but i
just wanted to ask you
uh about the astrazeneca uh virus the
oxford astrazeneca
uh vaccinated pardon um which the uk
hopes to put through before the end of
the year and give regulatory approval to
what's the us position on that have you
have you got a good sense
that it is ready to be rolled out as
well
well we have a phase three trial with
the az product right here in the united
states
that is accruing uh very well
and uh we will get an answer based on a
full-dose prime followed by a full-dose
boost
you know the situation in the uk they
started off
with a half dose followed by a full dose
and then when they did the comparisons
they had an
unusual finding which still is not
explainable
why half those followed by a full dough
you know gave a better response than a
full dose followed by a full dose
so i i think i'm just going to hold back
on any judgment on that
until we get the full phase three trial
that's done here in the united states on
the same product
dr anthony fauci thank you so much for
joining us on news night
my pleasure good to be with you