Dr. Fauci, welcome back
to The Daily Social Distancing Show.
(chuckles) Thank you. Very nice to be with you.
Thank you for having me.
Before I ask you about us,
I'm going to try as we do in African culture
and ask you about you.
I know that you had surgery on your vocal cords,
something I'm very sensitive to because I, too, had polyps,
and I had to get them surgically removed.
How are you, and how is your voice?
I'm actually fine, Trevor. Thank you for asking.
You know, I should have had this done
literally months ago.
Uh, I had kind of strained my voice.
I had, actually, an upper respiratory infection
and had a little tracheitis.
Usually you rest and let it go away,
but that's when things started to explode with COVID-19.
And I was literally constantly-- and, I say, not hyperbole--
you know, 17, 18 hours a day talking
to the point where I just strained it
and strained it and strained it.
And then I realized my voice was gravelly,
and I could not get it back to normal.
But the surgery was very successful.
They removed a benign polyp,
and now this is my regular voice.
-So, I-I joke around. -(laughs)
Instead of sounding like Vito Corleone from The Godfather,
I sound like Tony Fauci from the NIH.
As somebody who's had the surgery,
I know how horrible it can be,
so I'm glad that you have your voice back.
And there are few people who need their voices
more than you do, especially considering
what's going on right now
not just in America but around the world.
I spoke to you six months ago.
The country saw you every day.
We-we had a routine.
We wake up. We see Dr. Fauci.
He gives us an update.
We know what we're doing or what we're not doing.
Then you disappeared,
and now I have to rely on Facebook
to know how to not or not fight the virus
or fight the virus. So, where have you been?
You know, there's been a change in the intensity
with which the Coronavirus Task Force,
the White House Coronavirus Task Force has been involved.
It used to be on a daily basis
when we were talking about the public health issues.
Then there was kind of a switch and a pivoting
that was focusing mostly on opening the economy
and opening the country, which is a good thing.
So, we did... We're not meeting as frequently.
And you remember, we used to have, like,
a press conference every single day.
-Oh, I remember, yes. -Uh, and, uh, they decided
that they were not... they were gonna pull back
and have mostly the president give the press conference.
And then, you know, we are sometimes on the media,
sometimes not. It's kind of erratic.
Like, on the classic media, you might see me
a couple of days in a row, and then I'm off for a while.
And it's just a question
of whether they have a message that they want out
and if it's the message that they want out
at that particular day, then you might go out.
If not, you don't go out.
And that's the reason why I value the-the opportunity
to speak with you and to others,
because I think we can get the public health measure
that I really feel is very important
for the health of the American public,
to be able to say it in a way that's received by the people
who really would benefit from it.
Yeah, because I'm not gonna lie to you, Dr. Fauci.
Right now, it feels like
everyone is making this up as they go along
because it doesn't feel like the public has a-a solid source
from which to deal with, you know?
Um, you will hear one thing from the CDC,
then another thing from the CDC.
We don't know when it gets updated or not.
Then the director of the CDC says something.
Then the president contradicts him.
Then-then we hear
that this is happening with masks or not masks,
and we hear that this is happening
with vaccines or not with vaccines.
Is there a reason there isn't
a centralized source of information
like there is in many other countries around the world?
Well, you know, Trevor, that's a difficult question
to give a satisfactory explanation for
because, as a matter of fact,
there, you know, there has been switches
in how the messages have gone out.
And you're right. I...
You know, from a research and public health standpoint,
I try my best, and I think I'm successful,
in giving a consistent message
as often as I can get the message out,
something that is just based on the scientific data,
based on evidence,
which is something that is really very important.
One of the things that I think
gets in the way is that we-we are
in such a divisive, uh, state in society
that it tends to get politicized.
-It's almost a one side versus the other. -Mm-hmm.
And the thing that I keep saying,
and I'll say it very briefly now because I think it's important,
is that everybody feels we need to open the economy
to get people back to work, to get people back to school.
But the public health messages that we've given
and that you've heard me give back months ago
when we used to have the press conferences
from the White House
is that public health measures
should be more of a gateway
and a pathway to opening the country
as opposed to the obstacle to opening the country.
So, what-what has evolved now
is that, almost, people take sides.
Like wearing a mask or not is a political statement,
and that's really very unfortunate,
totally unfortunate,
because this is a purely public health issue.
It should not be one against the other.
And I think the confused messages
that you're alluding to correctly and appropriately
is that you don't have a single message
when messages get sort of thrown
into political buckets.
And that's something that I really wish,
that, you know, conversations like you and I are having now
would dispel that and put that aside
and say, "For goodness' sakes."
I've never had any political ideology
that I've made public.
I'm really just talking to you about public health.
When I'm telling you, "Wear a mask.
"Keep social distancing.
"Avoid crowds. Wash your hands.
Do things outdoors more than indoors,"
there's nothing political about that.
That's a... that's a public health message
that we know works,
because every time groups of people have done that
in situations where you've had a surge of infections,
the surge has come around and come down.
So, we have within our capability
the-the ability to turn this around.
If you were to rate America's response to the coronavirus
on a scale of one to ten, as an epidemiologist,
where do you rate it?
Well, you know, it's very interesting,
because if you look at the numbers, Trevor,
the numbers are telling.
We have in this country now,
you know, close to 200,000 deaths.
We have six million-plus infections.
You can't look at that and say that's terrific.
You know, but if you look at the country,
there are parts of the country
that have done well, that are doing well.
Right now, what I'm liking, what I'm seeing
is that some of the numbers are coming down.
What I'm concerned about
is that our baseline
is still very, very high, Trevor.
It's like... It-it never got
below 20,000 new cases a day.
-Mm-hmm. -When we tried to open up the economy,
as it it were, some states jumped ahead of the guidelines.
Some people didn't listen to what the governors
and what the mayors were saying.
And, remember, we went way up to 70,000,
and now we're coming back down to 30,000 or 40,000.
But the thing I'm concerned about
is that as you go into the fall and winter
and more things will have to be done indoors
rather than outdoors, you want to start off
with the lowest possible baseline that you could have.
So, in the next several weeks, what I would love to see
is the country pulling together as a whole
to try and get that baseline down
so that when we go into the winter and the fall
and we, perhaps, get hit with a flu season--
I hope that people will get their flu vaccines--
that we're not struggling at a disadvantage.
Because you have a disadvantage when there's community spread
and you have 40,000 new infections each day.
That is not a good place to be.
Let me ask you two questions to that.
Number one: how do you respond to the people who say,
well, the-the infection rates shouldn't matter?
It's only the death rates that should matter.
And, even then, the death rates are being inflated,
and some people are saying people have died from corona
when, in fact, people are dying with corona,
as in they just have corona and they're dying
but it's not corona that causes their death.
I think the 200,000 deaths that you're talking about,
Trevor, are a good reflection
of people that likely would not have died
-if they didn't have, uh, this infection. -Uh-huh.
The thing that I think
we need to be careful and humble about
in that we don't know everything about this infection.
But what we're starting to see right now
are a couple of things that are troubling to me,
and that is that, first of all,
more and more young people, you see, when you look at it,
are getting into some significant trouble.
Not a lot, not a high percentage-- that's true.
The other thing is that, when people get infected,
we're seeing more and more of lingering signs and symptoms.
So that when you clear the virus,
you may have weeks or months or so
in which you're just not quite right.
And the final thing is that they've recently done a study
that was published in the Journal
of the American Medical Association Cardiology
where people who recovered
even from disease that wasn't that severe,
when you do MRIs or imaging, sensitive imaging,
you can see things like inflammation of the heart.
Now, they may not be symptomatic,
but we want to make sure that,
six months or a year from now,
they don't wind up with unexplained arrhythmias
or premature heart attacks or cardiomyopathies.
So the situation is not wrapped up
about what is the full impact of this,
which means we have to take it very seriously,
even among people who are obviously in trouble and die.
There's other people that we need to be concerned about.
Many people say that they will only take a vaccine
once Dr. Fauci says the vaccine is safe.
My question to you is, if everyone's asking Dr. Fauci,
who does Dr. Fauci ask?
When do you think a vaccine is safe?
I look at the data, Trevor.
The-- In fact, the Data and Safety Monitoring Board,
which is an independent group that monitors the trials,
they look at the data,
they analyze it with independent statisticians,
and they will say, "This is effective."
And then you look at the number of people
that have been on the trial for a period
of an additional 30 to 60 days.
And if you don't see any obvious serious adverse events,
then I would consider that effective and safe,
and I would take it myself.
We know that we should wear masks
when we are indoors in a closed environment.
But it feels like there's confusion
when it comes to a few other things.
So I'm just gonna shoot a few rapid-fire ones at you--
I've written them down-- and you'll just tell me yes or no,
whether or not we should be wearing a mask.
So, uh, should I be wearing a mask
if I'm riding my bike out on the street?
Not necessarily, no.
But you should have it with you in case you come
into close contact with people on the outside.
But if you're alone and there's nobody near you
and you're riding your bike, you don't need to wear the mask.
Okay. What about if I'm eating
in a restaurant where they are open--
should I put my mask on between courses?
'Cause I can take it off to eat. Do I have to put it on
-between the courses? -Yeah.
I think because there's enough movement
and people that are usually within six feet
that you probably should.
What I do is I put it around my neck
and then I could, you know, eat, drink and then put it back up
when you're waiting for the waiter or something to occur.
But, now, people have said that there's coronavirus
on your neck. So should I put it on my neck or do--
Can I get coronavirus from my neck
-when the mask come back to my mouth? -(chuckles)
Good question. If you just flip it up and down, you won't--
You-you don't want to put your hand on the outside of it.
Okay, got it. In an empty elevator,
can I-- do I put my mask on?
Well, you know, the answer is,
when the door opens, somebody might walk in
and you have no idea, you know, who's gonna walk in.
So you might want to just keep it on.
By the way, let me show you. See this?
This is what I do. You have it on.
You go like this, bingo, and you're okay.
Then you go like this, bingo, it's up.
What if you're talking to somebody
and they don't understand what you're saying?
Do you pull it down to-to say something?
Or do you just, like-like, practice saying it louder?
No, you say it again and repeat it.
That's a really good point.
Because when you then put down,
you tend to speak louder, with more force,
and that's when all of the particles--
if they're there, if you're infected-- will come out.
-I would leave the mask on. -Okay.
All right. And then my final one.
If you are in a movie theater--
some people are going to movies around the country--
and you're watching Christopher Nolan's new movie Tenet, right,
and then there's only two people in the cinema,
do you put your mask on or do you keep it off?
Well, if they're so physically distanced away from you,
you probably could keep it off.
But, remember, you got to be careful,
because, in the theater,
if there's not good ventilation,
there could be aerosol in that.
Myself, uh, uh, what I would do,
I would probably keep it on, just to be safe.
Because I'm indoors. That's the reason.
-Because I'm indoors. -Okay, well, Dr. Fauci,
I hope we see you, um, again soon.
I hope it is not six months.
And I hope that we don't have a-a worse case of coronavirus.
I hope people wear their masks. Thank you for taking your time.
Don't forget to do your vocal warm-ups.
It helps me a lot before I-I talk for a long time.
And last thing, last thing I will say to you is,
would you consider getting one of those celebrity phone numbers
so then you could just text everybody personally?
Then we could just-- 'Cause, like, celebrities text people
and go, like, "Hey, my concert is coming up."
You could do that and just tell us,
"Hey, guys, here's the new update for corona."
Just a thought. You should consider it, Dr. Fauci.
-I will do that. Thank you. -Just text the nation.
Thank you. Look after yourself, and thanks for joining us again.
You, too. Stay safe, Trevor. Take care.