Tag: Dr. Anthony Fauci

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Dr. Anthony Fauci On COVID-19: ‘The Deaths Are Real’

Dr. Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci
Dr. Anthony Fauci on ‘This Week’ (screen capture)
During an appearance on ABC News’s This Week, Dr. Anthony Fauci shared that he did not foresee how the COVID-19 pandemic death toll in the United States would spin out to such high levels. Fauci pointed to indoor activities and holiday travel for aiding transmission of the virus. He also repeated his call for Americans to take public health precautions seriously if we ever hope to slow the current surge. From ABC News:

“To have 300,000 cases in a given day, and between two and 3,000 deaths a day is just terrible,” the nation’s top infectious disease expert told ABC’s “This Week” Co-anchor Martha Raddatz Sunday. “There’s no running away from the numbers, Martha. It’s something that we absolutely got to grasp and get our arms around and turn that inflection down by very intensive adherence to the public health measures, uniformly, throughout the country, with no exception.”

“The deaths are real deaths,” Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, when asked by Raddatz for his response to the president’s tweet. “All you need to do is go out into the trenches. Go to the hospitals and see what the health care workers are dealing with. They are under very stressful situations in many areas of the country. The hospital beds are stretched, people are running out of beds, running out of trained personnel who are exhausted.”

“That’s real,” he continued. “That’s not fake. That’s real.”

Just prior to Fauci’s appearance, Donald Trump tweeted (with no evidence) that the numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of infected persons and deaths in the country are “exaggerated.” That’s in spite of nearly every state reporting increased coronavirus infections nationwide. According to Johns Hopkins University COVID tracker, the U.S. this weekend surpassed 20 million reported cases of COVID-19, and the number of deaths has now exceeded 351,000 since the pandemic began 10 months ago.

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Dr. Fauci Gets COVID Shot To Convey Confidence & Safety In Vaccine

Dr. Anthony Fauci receives the Moderna vaccine
From ABC News:

The country’s most prominent infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, received his first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday in a ceremonial event at the National Institutes of Health.

The event was shown live on national television as part of an effort to reassure Americans that the vaccine was safe and effective.

“I feel extreme confidence in the safety and the efficacy of this vaccine and I want to encourage everyone who has the opportunity to get vaccinated so that we can have a veil of protection over this country, that would end this pandemic,” he said as he waited for his shot.

I sure hope my arm looks that good when I’m 80-years-old.

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Fauci: Herd Immunity Possible By Summer If Majority Of Americans Vaccinated

New York state is about to drop its face mask mandate as COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the Empire State.

Dr. Anthony Fauci told reporters on Tuesday that ‘herd immunity’ to the coronavirus could be attained in the U.S. by the end of summer 2021 if a large majority of Americans are vaccinated. From The Hill:

In a Tuesday news conference with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), Fauci predicted that high-risk groups of Americans, as well as health care workers and some others, could begin to be vaccinated beginning this month, with inoculations continuing through March.

The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases director predicted that “the general population” will begin being vaccinated in April.

He later added that if the U.S. has a “good uptake” for the vaccine, the country could have the “overwhelming majority of people” vaccinated by the end of the second quarter in the U.S.  

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Coronavirus Update 11/11/20

New York state is about to drop its face mask mandate as COVID-19 cases continue to drop in the Empire State.

No, Donald Trump Jr., the coronavirus has not ‘magically’ gone away now that the 2020 election has passed. With the virus surging in so many places both here and around the world, I wanted to create a way to share news related to the pandemic in an abbreviated manner. For more information on any of the stories below, please feel free to click the links. Per Johns Hopkins Hospital coronavirus tracking, the U.S.  has now reported 10,353,604 cases of COVID-19 resulting in 240,688 deaths. • CBS News: Texas became the first state to surpass 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Tuesday. The second-most populous U.S. state, Texas now has more coronavirus cases than all of Italy, which was previously one of the major hot spots of the virus. California is close behind with over 986,000 confirmed cases, as is Florida with more than 852,000. • ABC News: Faced with more than 2,000 new daily COVID-19 cases in his state and hospitals at capacity, Utah’s Gov. Gary Herbert has declared a state of emergency and issued a mandate for all residents to wear masks in public until further notice. Herbert’s announcement implored all state residents “to do everything in your power to stop the spread of this disease.” • CNN: Following the positive news regarding the effectiveness of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN’s Jake Tapper that an average American could potentially have access to a coronavirus vaccine by April of 2021.

• Pink News: Brazil’s homophobic president Jair Bolsonaro has told his country to accept coronavirus and stop dealing with it like “a country of fags”. The far-right leader made the remarks as his country has suffered over 5.7 million infections and 163,000 deaths from coronavirus. “We have to stop being a country of fags… We have to face up to it and fight. I hate this faggot stuff.” • Nevada Current: With the coronavirus surging in Nevada and nearly every state in the nation, Gov. Steve Sisolak urged people Tuesday to “to operate in a ‘Stay at Home 2.0’ mentality to get things under control so our public health response infrastructure can catch up.” Nevada has seen more than 1,300 cases a day over the most recent seven day period and hospitalization rates not seen since August. • The Hill: A top health department official in Wisconsin says that the state is nearing a tipping point at which some patients who need lifesaving care will be unable to receive it due to overcrowding in hospitals resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak.

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Trump On COVID: People Are Saying ‘Whatever – Just Leave Us Alone’

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is D-O-N-E done with the coronavirus pandemic. During a conference call with campaign staffers, Trump expressed frustration with infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci and other health officials calling them ‘idiots.’ From Politico:

“People are tired of Covid. People are saying, ‘Whatever, just leave us alone.’ People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Trump said on the call, which included press.

“He’s been here for, like, 500 years. He’s like this wonderful sage telling us how — Fauci, if we listened to him, we’d have 700,000 [or] 800,000 deaths.”

Trump described Fauci as a “disaster” and added that “every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb. But there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him.”

Trump also commented on the call that he “couldn’t care less” if the media reported the remarks. “If there’s a reporter on, you can have it just the way I said it. I couldn’t care less.” Trump’s statement was probably in response to an interview Fauci gave CBS’s 60 Minutes where he told the venerable news magazine that Trump’s reluctance to wear a face mask in public is because he “equates wearing a mask with weakness.” “You know, a statement of strength,” Fauci said. “Like, ‘We’re strong. We don’t need a mask.’ That kind of thing.” Asked if that makes sense from a scientific stand point when facing a pandemic, Fauci answered, “No, it doesn’t. Of course not.”

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No, Fauci Didn’t Say Live Theater Won’t Come Back For Another Year

(photo: Ludovic Bertron/Flickr)
This has blown up across many outlets online and I feel the need to underscore Dr. Anthony Fauci’s true words. Per the New York Times, he did not say it would be more than a year after a coronavirus vaccine becomes available that theaters can open. He said it would be a year before “people feel comfortable returning to theaters without masks.”

As theaters look to see how they might reopen with safety accommodations including mask use, Dr. Anthony Fauci says it will likely be more than a year before people feel comfortable returning to theaters without masks.

“If we get a really good vaccine and just about everybody gets vaccinated,” he said in an Instagram Live interview with Jennifer Garner on Wednesday, “you’ll have a degree of immunity in the general community that I think you can walk into a theater without a mask and feel like it’s comfortable that you’re not going to be at risk.”

He said that would likely not be until mid- to late 2021.

But that doesn’t mean he is saying when it would be safe to go to the theater without a mask. Dr. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, clarified in a phone interview on Friday that he was referring to when people could return to theatergoing at their pre-coronavirus comfort levels. “Words like ‘safe’ are charged,” he said. “I’m talking about the general trend of when we’ll start to feel comfortable going back to normal if we get a safe and effective vaccine.”

It’s an important difference to note because Broadway and regional theaters may open by January or February. The pandemic situation changes weekly. So, folks, please don’t misconstrue Dr. Fauci’s comments to mean we need to write Broadway and live theater off for another whole year. It’s not what he said.

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Parody: Randy Rainbow ‘Gee, Anthony Fauci!’

  Political satirist Randy Rainbow offers his satirical take on the iconic West Side Story showstopper, “Gee, Officer Krupke,” as a homage to the United States’ leading expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci. “Gee, Anthony Fauci!” lampoons Donald Trump’s attempts to diminish or disregard Fauci’s efforts to get the U.S. through the deadly COVID-19 pandemic with some total zingers. Appealing to Fauci about the Donald, Randy sings:

Hey, Anthony Fauci, he’s dragging us south Forget the mask just slap some masking tape on his mouth While you help protect us, he prays it will pass He only covers his own ass

You can find my previous coverage of Randy’s clever parodies here.

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News Round-Up: May 13, 2020

Ignacio Pérez Rey (via Instagram)
Some news items you might have missed: • InstaHunks: You’ve gotta love a guy not afraid to wear a face mask during this pandemic. Ignacio Pérez Rey (above) proves you can look good AND be safer. Follow him on Instagram here. • Instinct: An openly gay New York state senator was rejected from donating blood even though he qualifies to do so under the new federal guidelines. • LGBTQ Nation: Homophobic and transphobic rapper Boosie Badazz posted a video on social media admitting that he hired a sex worker to give oral sex to his son and nephews when they were 12- and 13-years-old. While some commenters cheered Badazz for his actions, others were horrified and said that someone should call Child Protective Services to remove the children from his care. • PEOPLE: Beckett Cypher, the son of Melissa Etheridge and Julie Cypher, has died at age 21 of an opioid overdose. Etheridge and Cypher ended their relationship in 2000 but continued to co-parent their children. Musician David Crosby was later revealed to be Beckett’s biological father. • Buzzfeed News: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey emailed employees on Tuesday telling them that they’d be allowed to work from home permanently, even after the coronavirus pandemic lockdown passes. Some jobs that require physical presence, such as maintaining servers, will still require employees to come in. • CNN: Donald Trump voiced frustration Wednesday at the nation’s top infectious disease specialist after he warned a day earlier against reopening schools and businesses too quickly. “I was surprised by his answer, actually,” Trump said when asked about Dr. Anthony Fauci’s warnings during televised congressional testimony that reopening states too quickly could have dire consequences. Trump added, “It’s not an acceptable answer.”

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FDA To Authorize Emergency Use Of New Drug After ‘Optimistic’ Signs

The New York Times reports the F.D.A. is expected to authorize as early as Wednesday Gilead Sciences’ experimental anti-viral drug remdesivir for emergency use in treating patients with Covid-19. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s leading infectious diseases scientist, told reporters a trial study overseen by the National Institutes of Health showed clear signs the drug could make a difference in speeding up the recovery of some patients.

Dr. Fauci said the federal trial indicated that the drug remdesivir could shorten the time to recovery by about a third. “Although a 31 percent improvement doesn’t seem like a knockout 100 percent, it is a very important proof of concept because what it has proven is that a drug can block this virus,” Dr. Fauci said. “This is very optimistic.”

In a statement, Gilead Sciences said it was “aware of positive data emerging from” the study by Dr. Fauci’s institute, known as NIAID. “We understand that the trial has met its primary endpoint and that NIAID will provide detailed information at an upcoming briefing.”

Remdesivir is not yet licensed or approved in the United States or anywhere in the world “and has not yet been demonstrated to be safe or effective for the treatment of Covid-19,” according to Gilead.

Remdesivir has never been approved as a treatment for any disease. It was developed to fight Ebola, but results from a clinical trial in Africa were disappointing.

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SNL: Brad Pitt’s ‘Dr. Fauci’ Fact-Checks Trump’s Coronavirus Lies

Brad Pitt as Dr. Anthony Fauci on SNL
Earlier this month, infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked who he’d like to see play him on Saturday Night Live and the good doctor said, “Brad Pitt, of course.” Well, it turns out dreams do come true as the Academy Award winner showed up via video last night as Fauci for the show’s second SNL-at-Home edition. Outfitted in a wig, glasses and Brooklyn accent, Pitt began, “First, I’d like to thank all the older women in America who have sent me supportive, inspiring, and sometimes graphic emails.” “Now, there’s been a lot of misinformation out there about the virus. And, yes, the president has taken some liberties with our guidelines. So tonight, I would like to explain what the president was trying to say. And, remember, let’s all keep an open mind.” From there, Pitt’s ‘Fauci’ attempted to fact-check of the erroneous things Donald Trump has said in recent weeks about the coronavirus. For example, Trump’s declaration that there would be a vaccine “relatively soon.” “Relatively soon is an interesting phrase. Relative to the entire history of Earth, sure, the vaccine’s going to come real fast. But if you were to tell a friend, ‘I’ll be over relatively soon’ and then showed up a year and a half later, well, your friend may be relatively pissed off.” Then there’s the Donald’s assertion that “like a miracle, [coronavirus] will disappear.” Pitt’s Fauci responds, “A miracle would be great. Who doesn’t love miracles? But miracles shouldn’t be plan A. Even Sully tried to land at the airport first.” Regarding Trump’s statement that “I’m not sure anybody knows what it [coronavirus] is.” (pause) “We know what it is,” says Pitt’s Fauci. Theorizing he may soon be fired from the White House Coronavirus Task Force for telling the truth and sharing the science behind the ongoing health threat, ‘Fauci’ added this: “Until then, I’m going to be there, putting out the facts for whoever’s listening. And when I hear things like ‘the virus can be cured if everyone takes the Tide pod challenge,’ I’ll be there to say, ‘Please don’t.’” Finally, Pitt removed his wig and glasses to address the public and frontline health workers as himself: “To the real Dr. Fauci, thank you for your calm and your clarity in this unnerving time. And thank you to the medical workers, first responders, and their families for being on the frontline.”