(CNN) Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the most prominent members of the White House coronavirus task force, said on Monday that he has not spoken to or met with President Donald Trump in two weeks.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, added that his contact with the President has become much less frequent.
Their last interaction was May 18, when Trump invited Fauci to provide medical context during a teleconference with the nation’s governors.
The Task Force last met on May 28 and last held a White House press briefing on May 22. Source.
Anthony Fauci on Covid-19 reopenings, vaccines, and moving at ‘warp speed’
June 1, 2020
Stat News – Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has seen the photos of bars packed with mask-less patrons. He was not impressed.
He was similarly unenthused about a decision by the biotech company Moderna to issue snippets of early data from the vaccine trial his agency has been conducting — without waiting for fuller results.
That said, these days, Fauci sees reason for cautious optimism about Moderna’s vaccine, and others.
The idea of having a vaccine by the end of the year is “aspirational, but it’s certainly doable,” he told STAT in a wide-ranging interview.
One of the most visible faces of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, the NIAID director also acknowledged the world will have limited data on the new vaccines when they are deployed, and may have to balance the need to save lives with the possibility of some adverse events.
A transcript of the interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
A lot of states are moving to open up really quickly, trying to get their economies back in gear. We’ve seeing pictures of crowds on beaches and in other settings; many people aren’t wearing masks. Are you worried that we’re setting ourselves up for a boomerang effect in the next few weeks?
I certainly have sensitivity for the need of the public to start getting to some form of normalization, given that we’ve been through more than three months of a very difficult time.
But it’s a big country and the dynamics of the outbreak are different from one part of the country to another. If people want to get out, they’ve really got to gauge it with the level of the outbreak in their particular area … Read more.
