Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday reflected on the U.S. response to the Covid-19 pandemic in what was likely his last public briefing as the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
Nearly three years after Covid-19 first arrived on America’s shores, Fauci said he never imagined the pandemic would last so long and take so many lives.
“I did not imagine and I don’t think any of my colleagues imagined that we would see a three-year saga of suffering and death and a million Americans losing their lives,” Fauci, 81, told reporters during a Covid update at the White House.
Fauci is stepping down in December as head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases after nearly 40 years at the helm and as White House chief medical advisor
He said the most disturbing feature of Covid was the evolution of multiple variants, which upended the U.S. response to the pandemic several times.
When challenged about mixed messages given to the public about the virus in the early days of the pandemic, Fauci said public health officials were dealing with an evolving outbreak.
Public health guidance changed because information about the virus changed from week to week and month to month, he said.
Initially health officials thought the virus spread from animals to humans, but subsequently learned it spread very well between people, Fauci said. It also became clear later that the virus was aerosolized and up to 60% of people spreading it had no symptoms at all, he said.
“The recommendations based on what you know in January, by the time you get to March, April and May — they will change,” Fauci said. “Understandably that leads to a question on the part of the public: Why do they keep changing things?”
Fauci said one of the most difficult parts of the pandemic for him was the politicization of public health under the Trump administration.
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