Fauci said he thinks it is ‘unthinkable’ that he received death threats ‘if you try to promote public health principles to save people’s lives’

© Al Drago / Getty Images
Dr. Anthony Fauci at a hearing in the First Chamber of Health, Education, Labor and Retirement on June 30, 2020 in Washington, DC. Images by Al Drago / Getty

• Top American infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said it seemed “unintended” that he was receiving death threats as a result of the “political tone” of the virus.
• Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, serves on the White House coronavirus task force.
• Fauci’s comments and recommendations have at times been at odds with the president, who is accused of politicizing the coronavirus pandemic.
• “I just think it’s a reflection of the division in the country. It has adopted a political tone, like nothing I have ever seen,” Fauci said.
• He recalled the criticism he received when he worked on the response to the AIDS epidemic, saying he came in contact with “people who are overreacting to the fact that I am working hard on HIV / AIDS. – many of them were homophobic people – and I felt I was turning sources on people who did not think they were part of society. “
• “But that was never something serious like it is now, where people get angry enough that they threaten my life and terribly harass my wife and children with phone calls,” he said.
• “It does not seem to think if you just think about it … that if you try to promote public health principles to save people’s lives and keep them healthy, that there is such divisiveness in the country, that this is explained to be so far from your own way of thinking that you really want to threaten the person, “Fauci continued.
• The federal government has provided Fauci and his family with personal security in response to the threats, he said.
• The infectious disease expert said he hopes “we will get past this distribution in our country.” He said, despite people having “different thoughts and different ideologies”, he hopes that “we will get it out of the realm of such an intense division that you start things like threatening people.”
• “That’s just not a way that our society can function really well and go that way,” he continued. “We have to get past that.”
• Fauci made his remarks during an exclusive interview with National Geographic as part of her event, “Stopping Pandemics,” which is set to air on Thursday.
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