The director of the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, says on 04. DC.
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White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, said in a recent interview that there is a “very worrying” politically partisan divide over science in the United States that has hampered the nation’s response to the Covid pandemic.
Fauci noted that “because I represent science” if I ask people to get the coronavirus vaccine and keep wearing masks, “I will be attacked” in the form of death threats that require him to be protected by federal agents will.
“What we are seeing is a public health issue that requires synergies between all elements of our government, realizing that the common enemy is the virus,” he told Dr. Bill Frist, a former Senate majority leader, who conducted the interview shown online Monday during a coronavirus outlook event hosted by the non-partisan Policy Center.
“Sometimes, when you listen to people, it’s almost like the enemy is one another,” said Fauci Frist, a Republican who represented Tennessee in the Senate. “And we have public health decisions that are based on [ideological] Considerations. You should never have that. “
Fauci then, without mentioning political party affiliations or the names of his two youngest bosses, pointed to significantly higher Covid-19 vaccination rates among people living in counties that voted for Democrat President Joe Biden than people who live in counties that former Republican President Donald Trump won the 2020 elections.
“You should never do that when you look at a map and see people who are vaccinated fall heavily into one group and people who are not vaccinated fall heavily into another group,” Fauci said. “This is in contrast to what public health should be, which should be a concerted effort of the whole population.”
Deadline noted that when Congress was serving in the Senate and Republicans had a majority, it doubled funding for the National Institutes of Health, whose Department of Allergies and Infectious Diseases Fauci has headed since 1984.
Now Frist said, “It seems like a lot of these people are questioning science.”
“It has become a partisan divide in science,” said Frist, who, without naming names or parties, appeared to refer to the widespread opposition to vaccination and mask mandates by a number of Republican leaders.
Fauci quipped, “I think if you were back in the Senate now you would have heartburn.”
Fauci later said, “You are right. There is an anti-science element right now that has a very strong political touch, which is very worrying.”
“I hope that when we get out of here people will look back and realize that we never want to do that again because it really hampered our response to this pandemic,” he said.
