Dr. Anthony Fauci tells MarketWatch why he won't fly, eat at restaurants
This is not the first public-health emergency Dr. Anthony Fauci has faced. But it’s up there with the worst of them, he says, and it’s not even close to being over yet. “We’ve had challenges with Ebola, the early years of HIV/AIDS, the anthrax attacks and Zika,” he told MarketWatch in a wide-ranging interview. “This is probably a cut above all of those because this is very intense,” he says.
Fauci on Trump’s new round of daily briefings At 79, when most Americans have retired, Fauci has vowed to keep working, even if his message is sometimes at odds with that of Trump. The president has only recently embraced the policy of wearing a face mask, and went as far as to call it “patriotic.” Fauci it came not a moment too soon. Did he watch when the daily news briefing when Trump said, “I’m getting used to the mask.
Fauci discussed air travel and why he’s avoiding it, eating out and why he’s avoiding that, the price of a coronavirus vaccine and who should be first in line, the mixed success of mask mandates from Dublin, Ohio to Dublin, Ireland , and lessons from his first pandemic — the HIV/AIDS crisis that eventually killed more than 32 million people worldwide.
Isn’t it hard to get children to socially distance in school, and young adults to follow the rules? “Yes, it is,” Fauci says. “Sooner or later, a vulnerable person gets infected and gets seriously ill. You should realize that it is your duty and your civic responsibility: You could be hurting someone else. That’s a tough message to get because some young people feel completely invulnerable.”
I spend half a day in my office trying to develop a vaccine and drugs for COVID-19, and that’s really what I need to do. I don’t fancy seeing myself getting infected, which is a risk when you’re getting on a plane, particularly with the amount of infection that’s going on right now. Fauci: Yeah, that’s unfortunate because there really is an inconsistency in usage and an inconsistency in message. We’ve really got to make it very clear. If you want to pick three or four or five very simple tools that could have a major impact on turning around the outbreak.
MarketWatch: I presume you are not hanging out in restaurants or bars. Is it really more dangerous to eat indoors at a restaurant than outdoors? MarketWatch: What are the chances there will be one big long wave rather than first or even a second wave? That’s how it’s starting to feel. MarketWatch: You’ve said you’re hopeful of a vaccine in the spring. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s emergencies program, among other observers, have said that early next year is optimistic. Are you still saying early next year?
Generally, with most vaccines, you tend to give a high priority to frontline workers: Hospital emergency-room people, those maintaining order in society, and people who are more vulnerable to the deleterious and serious effects associated with infections — the elderly and those with underlying conditions.
The same thing with coronavirus. It was felt to be just a virus that jumps species from an animal to a human, and we found out that was not the case, that it spread very easily from human to human. It rapidly exploded into a major global pandemic. There are a lot of differences, too. One is an insidious disease that accumulates over decades, and the other is a major explosion of cases in a period of less than six months.
Fauci: Well, it’s not helpful, it’s sobering that 20% to 45% of the people who were infected don’t have any symptoms at all, which makes it extremely difficult to do contact tracing.
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