For most of 2020, the little socialization of Anthony Fauci involved the neighbors right next door.
Fauci has lived in the same neighborhood in northwest Washington, DC for more than 40 years, and the combination of his busy schedule and pandemic safety has limited his social life to a small ray.
“I have not had that day in a year and three months,” Fauci told me recently.
When Fauci and his wife did get together with the neighbors, they took no chances: the households stayed at a social distance and outside, even in the fall and winter when the weather got cold.
“Every time we meet, we do it outside, freeze our butts, wear a mask, eat or drink a drink outside on my deck,” he said.
Then Fauci, who has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, was vaccinated. In a very photographed moment (see above) he got his first Moderna recording on December 22nd. In the ensuing months, others in his age group followed.
Because Fauci was fully vaccinated, he changed his behavior – but only slightly.
The biggest shift is that he and his neighbors eventually moved the party indoors: ‘We feel very comfortable in the house without masks, and we can have physical contact and things like that,’ he said.
But for now, he still will not eat indoors in a restaurant or go to a theater.
“I do not think I will – even if I am vaccinated – go to an indoor, busy place where people do not wear masks,” Fauci said.
He also does not plan any trip: “I do not really see myself going on a trip for a while,” he said.
Anthony Fauci in Washington DC on February 25, 2021.
Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images
He says Fauci’s caution stems from the ‘interesting crossroads’ on which the US sits.
A record number of people are vaccinated daily – an average of 3 million doses are given daily – but the number of new infections reported is still trending in 18 states. In Michigan, one of the worst hotspots, the average daily fall rate has more than quadrupled in the past month.
“It’s kind of a race between the vaccine and the possibility that there’s going to be a resurgence,” Fauci said. So the more Americans are patient about their return to normal life, he added, the less likely we are to see a fourth case increase.
Fauci will not go indoors where people do not wear masks
Some neighbors of Anthony Fauci, with a “Thank you Dr. Fauci!” sign on August 3, 2020 in Washington.
Bill O’Leary / The Washington Post via Getty Images
Like 64 million other Americans, Fauci regularly rates what is safe and unsafe as a vaccinated person in a country where four out of five people have not yet been fully vaccinated. Rising US business rates are complicating matters. Over the past week, an average of more than 65,000 new cases have been reported per day – an increase of 14% from the country’s seven-day average in mid-March.
Given all of this, Fauci said his daily life remains essentially unchanged as it was before he got his shots. He does not see being vaccinated as a green light to resume the myriad activities he and the rest of us have been deprived of.
Movie theaters where viewers remove their masks to nibble on popcorn? Nope.
“It will still worry me,” Fauci said.
Bars and restaurants where maskless people eat and drink inside? That’s still off the table.
People are sitting in the London Bar Elba, 24 September 2020.
Hannah McKay / Reuters
Fauci’s behavior is in line with CDC guidelines, which state that vaccinated Americans should continue to wear a mask in public at all times and avoid medium and bulk gatherings.
As was the case with the entire pandemic, pubs and restaurants are particularly risky. A recent CDC study found that a rural pub in Illinois was home to a superspreader event. At least 46 cases of COVID-19, one hospitalization and school closure affecting 650 children were linked to the reopening of the bar in February.
‘Keeping a lid’ for business requires patience
Not all experts agree with Fauci and the CDC’s warning levels.
Dr Leana Wen, an emergency physician in Baltimore, had earlier told Insider that the CDC guidelines for vaccines were ‘too cautious’.
“For individuals who are fully vaccinated, they may decide to take the risk that other people may not get involved,” she said. “So I do not necessarily have a bad thing about having policies to allow certain things to happen again.”
A group of friends at Jones’s Local Bar in Hudson, Wisconsin, May 14, 2020.
Jerry Holt / Star Tribune via Getty Images
Still, Fauci said it was important that all Americans – vaccinated and vaccinated – continue to avoid crowds and socialize until we know for sure that vaccinated people are not spreading the virus. Increasing evidence suggests they are not, but to be patient is how we will keep a lid on this thing, Fauci said.
Fauci estimated that the threshold for herd immunity – the point at which enough Americans are vaccinated or immune to the virus against an infection to stop its overall spread – could be between 70% and 85% of the population.
“If we could just hold on for a while,” he said, “we would reach a point where the protection of the general community through the vaccine would make it very unlikely that we would have another boom.”
Vaccination rates in the US have doubled every month since February. If the trend continues, the country could reach the threshold as early as June.
So for Fauci, nights on the city can wait until then.
The CDC says travel is good, but Fauci will not do it
The CDC announced Friday that vaccinated Americans can travel by plane, train or bus to the United States without being quarantined or tested as long as they wear masks.
I was delighted because the change meant I could finally make a plan to visit my 84-year-old grandmother in Minnesota. I’t been itching for the past twelve months to see her – she’s in a parental home and it was hard to hear her sound lonely and lonely during our daily calls. She has been wanting to show me her balcony garden for months, and just walks along Wayzata Bay together.
So I asked Fauci if he was also planning any trip, hoping he could share my excitement.
No luck.
“I do not see it in my life,” Fauci said, adding, “when it’s all over, I’ll worry about it.”
Travelers are waiting to check their luggage at the Los Angeles International Airport on December 23, 2020.
AP Photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez
However, he admitted that part of the reason his life has changed just ‘very, very, very slightly’ over the past few months is that he does not yet have time to relax or recreate. His occasional indoor encounters with a few friends and family are all he can fit in.
“To be honest with you, I do not really have time to do anything else,” he said.
Thus, Fauci’s cautious approach is in part the result of a very skewed balance between work and private life.
“I’m a very unusual person,” he said.