Dr. Fauci admits Trump’s task force messages don’t match the COVID-19 reality on the ground
Sarah K. Burris
It what appears to be the closest Dr. Anthony Fauci has gotten in calling out President Donald Trump’s lies, the National Institutes of Health epidemiologist said that the information coming out of the coronavirus task force isn’t grounded in reality.
ABC News reported on Monday teasing an interview with Fauci that will air Tuesday, that Dr. Fauci is concerned the White House message isn’t accurate.
According to the report, Dr. Fauci was asked to explain why, even after months, the American government can’t provide adequate testing for the country and ensure that healthcare workers are all equipped with personal protective equipment.
“We keep hearing when we go to these task force meetings that these [issues] are being corrected,” Fauci said. “But yet when you go into the trenches, you still hear about that.”
He confessed that he didn’t have “a good answer” and he “cannot explain,” the difference between the facts and what the White House is saying. He said that those matters have nothing to do with his daily responsibilities. Part of the reason for the lack of PPE, he said, is because “many of the things that we needed were not produced in the United States.”
Despite Trump’s command for buying American, he hasn’t enacted the Defense Production Act to have U.S. companies creating loads of PPE materials for desperate healthcare workers, nursing home staff and others.
But on Thursday, Trump proclaimed that everything was fine.
“Remember I used to say the cupboards were bare?” Trump claimed. “Well, now the cupboards are the opposite.”
Dr. Fauci encouraged leaders to be willing to change their actions as the data changes.
“As a scientist, the thing you must always do is to be humble enough to know that when you get additional information, even information that might conflict what was felt earlier on, you then change your viewpoint and you change your recommendations based on the data,” Dr. Fauci said. “That’s what science is all about. Science is a learning process.”
He explained that the “explosion” of cases in southern states, which he said has been fueled by “a surge of community spread” from people not showing symptoms.
It’s “a real serious problem,” he told ABC News. “They need to be concerned because even though they themselves may not get any serious outcome, they are part of the propagation of the pandemic.”
