Toe dr. Anthony Fauci and the special contributor “Sunday Morning”, Ted Koppel, first met on camera, remote interviews were something new, and the country was determined about a global epidemic called HIV Aids. Couple, then from ABC’s “Nightline”, Fauci asked, “How much optimism do you have about some kind of vaccine?”
“Two vaccines are in phase one trials to determine safety, but if we are lucky enough, it will only have a vaccine in the 1990s. It will not last until 1995,” he replied.
Even 33 years ago, Fauci had a wide national following, but mostly among AIDS activists who were often very critical; and he has yet to inspire any videos, T-shirts, coffee mugs, or suggestions of impending holiness, as recently.
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“Oh, goodness,” Fauci said when he was shown a particularly sacred portrait of himself. “My nuns in Our Lady of Guadalupe in Brooklyn would turn in their grave if they saw it!”
There are other types of Fauci artifacts as well:
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And then there’s a July 22 Sinclair Broadcasting video, “America This Week,” in which a former chronic fatigue syndrome researcher, dr. Judy Mikovits, claimed: “I believe Dr. Fauci produced the coronaviruses.”
“You know, Ted, I think this is a dramatic example of the divisions in our country,” Fauci said. “We have completely distorted and thrown away scientific facts and evidence. And a certain part of the country believed the fake aspect, the false news aspect.
‘The other half longed for clarity, longed for facts, longed for truth. So, for better or worse, for some reason, I became a symbol that was unrealistic. Like St. Anthony. You know, it’s quite, OK, great, but it’s not a reality.
“On the other hand, I had people who threatened my life because I was talking social measures,” Fauci said.
Koppel said: “We have a video of you and your wife walking with a safety detail. Did it come?”
“Yes. Yes. It came. I caused such hostility that I should always have federal agents, armed federal agents, with me.”
“Are your children threatened?”
“I have to tell you, I’m not afraid of myself, of myself,” Fauci said. “But what’s really upsetting me is the harassment, constant harassment, of my three daughters. The crazy, you know, know who they are, know where they live, know what their phone number is, know where they work. It makes me furious. ‘
Koppel said: “Let’s talk about us, America. Here we are, we have 4% of the world population. There were two million deaths worldwide. If we had our share, we would have 80,000.”
“Right.”
‘It’s a lot … we have five times that number. ‘
“Right.”
“We were a serious failure, Tony.”
“Uh, huh. Yeah. The reasons for that, Ted, I do not think I can articulate them all, but some of them strike me because I went through them. You can not have mixed messages. You can not politicize. public health messages.I mean, the idea that wearing a mask or not has become a political statement?
Koppel said: “You have a very expressive face. And there is a moment – you will immediately know what I’m talking about – in the press room in the White House. I want you to finally reveal what you went through during that time. briefing. “
“Well,” Fauci said, “the one I think you’re referring to was when we were in the situation where we’re talking about hydroxychloroquine”:
President Trump: “It can work, may not work. I feel good about it. It’s all, just a feeling. You know, smart guy.”
“And he was up there talking about it, and I just think I went that way (put your hand on your face).”
“Yes.”
“I did it instinctively. And I just said to myself, ‘ O my God!, and unfortunately it has become the picture that has flared up all over the world. ‘
Jabin Botsford / The Washington Post via Getty Images
“People have come to a point where they do not understand it about President Trump: he can actually be an extraordinarily charming man,” Koppel said.
“Yes. You were right,” Fauci said. “He’s a charismatic person. I got along with him very, very well. But I had no pleasure in correcting clear misconceptions in the field of medicine and science. ‘
Fauci: “I’m not entirely sure what the president was referring to …”
“That, I think, irritated his staff, his loyal staff, in some ways even more than it irritated him. It was then that things started going in the wrong direction.”
President Trump: “He has this high approval rating. So why do I not have a high approval rating regarding – and the administration – regarding the virus?”
“So, the relationship has weakened a bit. When I would see him in the Oval Office, he would act as if everything was fine.
“And then we had the famous time when people ‘Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!’ and he said, “Hey, this is not a bad idea. I think I will do it.”
President Trump during a rally on November 1: “Tell no one this, but let me wait a bit after the election. He was very wrong. He was a nice man, but he was very wrong.”
Koppel asked, “With more consistent leadership, we could save many lives. Is that a fair statement?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Fauci replied. ‘I mean, I think if we had the messages about public health – from the top right to the people in the trenches – it would have been consistent, things would have been different. I’m actually pretty sure it would have been different. ‘
It’s a measure of Tony Fauci’s endurance that he just adopted a new title at the age of 80 and worked for Joe Biden – his seventh president – as chief medical adviser.
“What we are going to see in the next few months is more of a coordinated, synergistic partnership between the federal government and the states,” Fauci said. “So I believe we are going to see a turnaround in attitude when the federal government and the states start working together a lot more, as opposed to ‘You are alone.’
“Yeah, but, I mean, you’ve talked and you’ve experienced your own regret, the poison of bias that exists. It’s not going away, Tony.”
“Well, no, it’s not. What is our average is about 200,000 to 300,000 infections per day; about 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day? I mean, you have to look at the numbers and say, ‘We have to do something else. ”
Koppel said: “Your first big challenge is to get the vaccines in your arms.”
“Right now it’s getting better; but it’s going to get a lot better because President Biden has made it very clear that this is his top priority. You know that the goal that has been set, which I think is entirely achievable, is to raise 100 million have people vaccinated in the first 100 days … primary and boost. “
“In 100 days?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Do you realize you’re going to put yourself in a disaster if you do not achieve that goal?” asks Koppel.
“Of course, and this is one of the things that was a little refreshing in one of the first briefings we had with President Biden and Vice President Harris, is that he said, ‘We may have setbacks. But you “When does this happen, what are we going to do? We are not going to point the finger. We are not going to blame people. We are not going to hide anything. We are going to be completely transparent and honest and we will try to fix it.”
“We had, Tony, four years – to undermine trust in all our institutions: intelligence, the FBI, the media, science. It was a pandemic of its own kind, wasn’t it?”
“It has,” Fauci said. “And we have to fix it. We have to. Because the country is at stake. ‘
‘Do you have any thoughts on how to get started? There is no vaccination for it. ‘
“No, there is no vaccination. But I think maybe we should keep showing by example that association is much, much better than being divisive. Because division has really failed. I mean, it has failed us in every way. “
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Story produced by Dustin Stephens. Editor: Steven Tyler.