Anthony Fauci
Anthony FauciPublix is offering employees receiving COVID-19 vaccine a gift certificate from 5 stores on Sunday. COVID-19 dominates as the grim milestone Fauci approaches, 500,000 coronavirus deaths ‘devastating’ MORE, the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases, said Monday that political divisions over the use of masks have contributed to the number of deaths in the U.S. coronavirus.
Fauci comments on the same day that the death toll reached half a million people one year after the start of the pandemic. In an interview with Reuters, Fauci called the grim milestone “astonishing” and said the division over wearing masks, which divided Americans politically during a presidential election year, turned the public health measure into a political statement.
“Even under the best of circumstances, it would have been a very serious problem,” Fauci said.
“However, this does not explain how a rich and sophisticated country can die the most percentages and be the country hardest hit in the world,” Fauci said.
Fauci also calls the disregard by some governors and mayors of recommendations on how to reopen the country safely after nearly nationwide closures last spring as ‘incomprehensible’.
“When the American spirit was so divided, it really made me sad,” he said.
Although Fauci would not put all the blame on the former Trump administration, he noted that “the lack of commitment at the very top of the leadership to do everything scientifically based was detrimental to the effort.”
While the U.S. has 4 percent of the world population, it has nearly 20 percent of all coronavirus deaths, according to Reuters.
“This is the worst thing that has happened to this country in more than 100 years regarding the health of the country,” Fauci said.
Fauci told Reuters it was difficult to predict when the pandemic would be over due to the emergence of new coronavirus variants from South Africa and Brazil. Some studies have indicated that these strains are more resistant to existing coronavirus vaccination.
Fauci suggested that Americans could get their lives back before the pandemic by Christmas, but warned that restrictions could last until next year.