Dr. Anthony Fauci has a word for his industry colleagues.
In a conversation with the American Medical Association, Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said physicians need to be careful about their public statements. “Stay completely apolitical,” he said over the weekend. “Don’t get involved in any of the political aspects, and just focus on what your job is as a scientist and a physician. You do that, you’ll be fine.”
“ ‘Don’t get involved in any of the political aspects, and just focus on what your job is as a scientist and a physician. You do that, you’ll be fine.’ ”
On Monday, Pfizer PFE,
While the U.S. makes up approximately 4% of the world’s population, it has had approximately 20% of all COVID-19 cases. As of Wednesday, the U.S. had reported 10.2 million COVID-19 infections and 239,673 deaths, just ahead of India (8.6 million cases to date). To put that in context: The U.S. has a population of 328 million people versus 1.35 billion in India.
Fauci has walked a fine line between educating the public about coronavirus and President Trump. Last month, Trump took aim at Fauci on a campaign call and on Twitter TWTR,
On Twitter, the president, 74, also criticized Fauci’s media appearances urging people to wear masks and socially distance, and appeared to be rankled by the doctor’s media exposure: “Dr.Tony Fauci says we don’t allow him to do television, and yet I saw him last night on @60Minutes, and he seems to get more airtime than anybody since the late, great, Bob Hope.”
Fauci, meanwhile, has given the American public the same advice he gave fellow scientists over the weekend. “My advice to young people is — unless you want to be a politician — stay away from the politics and let science and good data guide your policy.” Fauci added, “We’re going through a time that’s disturbingly anti-science in certain segments of our society.”
On Monday, Fauci appeared on CNN and said that a vaccine could be administered by the end of this year. He called the announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech “good news” and “a really big deal.” He told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, “We may have doses that we are able to give to people by the end of November, the beginning of December, probably well into December.”
Speaking to AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James Madara last weekend, Fauci also said there have been significant improvements in treatment regarding when it’s best to put people on ventilators and how much oxygen to administer during intubation. “We just get better at treating the disease. We know what works, what doesn’t work,” he said.
“We know that dexamethasone clearly diminishes the death rate in people requiring mechanical ventilation and/or people who require high-flow oxygen,” Fauci said during the interview on Saturday. “We have remdesivir for hospitalized patients who have lung involvement.” Using anticoagulants for some patients is also increasingly common for COVID-19 treatment, he said.
