Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, says he was not surprised President Donald Trump contracted COVID-19.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” that aired Sunday, Fauci said he watched footage from the Sept. 26 White House Rose Garden ceremony announcing the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett with dismay due to the lack of precautions being taken.
“I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people and almost nobody wearing a mask,” Fauci said. “When I saw that on TV, I said, ‘Oh my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that. That's got to be a problem.’ And then sure enough, it turned out to be a superspreader event.”
There has been friction during the pandemic between Fauci and the White House, the doctor acknowledged.
Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he was “really ticked off” that Trump’s campaign featured him in a television ad by using a remark he said was taken out of context to sound like an endorsement of the president’s handling of the virus. Fauci also said the White House has blocked him from “many, many, many” media appearances.
Trump has repeatedly tried to discredit Fauci on Twitter and at his rallies. The president often brings up that Fauci had initially discouraged the public from wearing masks, which he did in part to prevent a rush to buy medical-grade masks that would have created a shortage for health care workers, to later recommending masks after the problem of asymptomatic transmission came into focus.
Fauci attempted to explain the about-face.
“It became clear that cloth coverings – and not necessarily a surgical mask or an N95 – cloth coverings work,” he said. “So now there's no longer a shortage of masks. No. 2, meta-analysis studies show that, contrary to what we thought, masks really do work in preventing infection.
“When you find out you're wrong, it's a manifestation of your honesty to say, ‘Hey, I was wrong. I did subsequent experiments and now it's this way.’”
While Trump has cast doubt on the effectiveness of masks, Fauci said he doesn’t believe the president’s reluctance to wear them has anything to do with science.
“It's more a statement,” he said. “A statement of strength, like, we're strong, we don't need ... a mask, that kind of thing.
“He sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness,” Fauci said, adding that it doesn’t make any sense to him.
Fauci said it’s been evident over “the last few years” that there has been a war on science.
“There's an anti-authority feeling in the world,” he said. “And science has an air of authority to it. So people who want to push back on authority tend to, as a sidebar, push back on science.”
Fauci has been vilified in conservative circles because his comments often conflict with Trump’s messaging. Some blame him partly for the lockdowns that have disrupted the U.S. economy.
That has led to the doctor receiving death threats and his family being harassed, he said. Fauci is now under the protection of federal agents – “60 Minutes” showed footage of him power-walking while flanked by guards.
“That's sad, the very fact that a public health message to save lives triggers such venom and animosity to me that it results in real and credible threats to my life and my safety,” he said. “But it bothers me less than the hassling of my wife and my children.”
But even as the number coronavirus cases climbs yet again, Fauci said he does not favor a national lockdown to bring the problem under control.
“They'd have to get really, really bad,” he said. “First of all, the country is fatigued with restrictions. So we want to use public health measures not to get in the way of opening the economy, but to being a safe gateway to opening the economy.”