Covirus 19 coronavirus: The United States turns to its chief expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci

The United States is beginning to criticize its leading coronavirus expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as prominent voices in the country’s media suggest it has too much influence.

Dr. Fauci, an infectious disease expert who has chaired the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since the 1980s, has been President Donald Trump’s most visible scientific adviser during the crisis.

He serves on the White House coronavirus task force, and often appears on the president’s television briefings.

In recent weeks, when Trump urged states to reopen their economies, Fauci has been more circumspect, emphasizing the risks of prematurely lifting the restrictions.

That apparent division between the president and his adviser was exposed yesterday when Fauci presented a hearing in the Senate. He said the United States should be “focused on proven public health containment and mitigation practices.”

The United States has recorded 1.4 million confirmed cases of the virus, and its death toll is 85,000. Reopening too quickly, Fauci said, could cause another increase in deaths.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control and, in fact, paradoxically, it will slow you down, not only causing some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even slow you down the road to try to recover the economy, “he told the senators.

His comments were met with skepticism by some of the Republican Party senators from Trump.

“As much as I respect him, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think it’s the end. I don’t think he’s the only person to make a decision,” said Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Senator Paul is also a doctor.

“We can listen to their advice, but there are people on the other side who say there will be no sudden increase and that we can safely reopen the economy. And the facts will confirm this.”

“I hope that people who predict pessimism and say, ‘Oh, we can’t do this, there will be an increase,’ will admit that they were wrong if there is no increase. Because I think that’s what’s going to happen.”

Paul said he was particularly interested in reopening schools across the country.

“If we keep children out of school for another year, what will happen is that poor and disadvantaged children who do not have a parent who can teach them at home are not going to learn for a full year,” he said. .

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“I think we should look at the Swedish model and we should allow our children to go back to school. I think it is a big mistake if we do not open schools in the fall.”

Sweden never closed its schools and has not imposed the strict closure measures seen in many other countries. Companies such as restaurants and clubs have remained open, albeit with imposed patterns of social distancing. There is a modest 50-person restriction on public gatherings.

The country has registered 28,000 cases of the virus and 3,460 deaths. According to Johns Hopkins University, it has a mortality rate of 33 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, which is slightly higher than in the United States (25), but significantly lower than in other European countries, such as Belgium (76), Spain. (58), Italy (51) and the United Kingdom (49).

Australia’s figure is 0.4 deaths per 100,000 people.

In response to the senator, Fauci emphasized that there were still many things that scientists did not understand about the virus.

“I have never set out to be the final and only voice on this,” he said.

“I am a scientist, a doctor, and a public health official. I give advice based on the best scientific evidence.

“I do not give advice on economic matters, I do not give advice on anything other than public health.

“We don’t know everything about this virus. And we had better be very careful, especially when it comes to children. Because we are learning more and more, we are seeing things about what this virus can do that we didn’t do. China or Europe. “

Fauci pointed to the example of young children, infected with the coronavirus, who have developed a “very strange inflammatory syndrome,” similar to Kawasaki disease.

“I think it would be better to be careful if we are not arrogant in thinking that children are completely immune to the ill effects,” he said.

“I don’t know everything about this disease, and that is why I am very reserved to make broad predictions.”

Fauci’s testimony, and particularly his exchange with Senator Paul, garnered a strong response from the commentator.

“Children must stay home or countless people could die. That is the message. It is time to ask a very simple question: How exactly do you know this?” Fox News presenter Tucker Carlson asked.

“Is Tony Fauci right about science? Do we have any particular reason to think he is right?

“At this time, there is a large body of evidence indicating that the United States should cautiously reopen.”

Carlson said Senator Paul was right to question the experience of health officials.

“There have been many erroneous predictions from Washington about the coronavirus issue, and some of them come directly from Dr. Fauci himself,” he said.

“We are not pointing it out or attacking it. We have certainly made many wrong predictions in this program. But we are not in charge of the entire country.”

He played some examples of apparently contradictory advice that Fauci had given during the pandemic. In a clip, Fauci told the Americans not to shake hands. In another, he said they should “weigh the risks” of relating to strangers, but did not ban it.

“At this point, this is something of a jester level,” Carlson said, and then labeled Fauci the “chief jester of the professional class.”

“We’re not doing this to make fun of the guy. Anyone who talks as much as Anthony Fauci can say some bullshit. The point is, is this the guy you want to trust with all your trust? Is this the guy you want chart the future of the country? Maybe not.

“This is a very serious matter, the decisions we are making right now. Tony Fauci has not been elected at all. He has had the same job for almost 40 years. That means that the majority of American voters never indirectly elected him to the role you have now. This is not the result of any kind of democratic process at work at all.

“However, in the past four months, Dr. Fauci has become one of the most powerful people in the world. Some, particularly in our media and in our Democratic establishment, are clamoring to give Dr. Fauci even more power. Why?

“Some people think that he should be a dictator while the crisis lasts. That’s crazy. Dr. Fauci, like any other human being, has flaws. He says wise things, says things that are profoundly silly.”

“He is not the only person who should be in charge when it comes to making long-term recommendations. This guy, Fauci, may be even more out of character than his average epidemiologist.”

Later in the night, Carlson Fox News colleague Sean Hannity tied up his own criticism of Fauci in a broader argument for the restrictions to end.

“The left is now running a non-stop campaign of fear and hysteria, despite declining Covid-19 infection rates, hospitalizations, deaths, well, Democrats, the mob and the media, it seems wanting to keep this country locked up indefinitely, “Hannity said.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci also seems to favor what Democrats want. And that’s massive restrictions, with no end in sight.

“There is no secret that he, like so many others, has been very wrong.”

And another colleague, Laura Ingraham, scoffed at the idea that the United States be “governed by the expert class.”

“In the end it would mean that Americans would be poorer and less free,” he said.

“No job unless it’s expertly approved. No worship services, no ball games, no concerts, no trips to see family or friends. Not at least until we get a shot.”

“With all due respect to Dr. Fauci’s experience, no one chose him at all.”

Fauci also copied The View’s reviews overnight. Co-host Meghan McCain, daughter of the late Senator John McCain, told her that she had been “really wrong about a lot of things.”

“‘You don’t have to wear masks’,’ 2.2 million people are going to die ‘,’ we need millions of fans’, now, ‘we have so many fans that we don’t know what to do with [them]'”he said, suggesting that Fauci’s advice had repeatedly changed.

“I think there has to be more than just: ‘We are blocking the country for the foreseeable future,'” he added, echoing Senator Paul’s argument.

Others in politics and the media have leapt in defense of Fauci.

Writing for Politico, conservative columnist Rich Lowry argued that “Fauci is not the villain.”

“He is neither the bureaucratic mastermind who imposes his will on the country that his detractors on the right make him appear, nor the philosopher-king in expecting his left-wing movers to inflate him,” Lowry wrote.

“He is simply an epidemiologist, one who brings considerable experience and expertise to the table, but at the end of the day, his approach is inevitably and quite rightly quite limited.”

“This is why it is tautology for Fauci’s critics to say that he is focused on the disease above all other considerations. This is like saying that the Secretary of Commerce is too busy looking for business opportunities to American companies, or the head of the Joint Special Operations Command has an unhealthy obsession with killing terrorists.

“What else are you supposed to do?”

Trump himself only lightly criticized Fauci when asked about his testimony in the Senate during a White House event earlier today.

Trump acknowledged that he had a strong difference of opinion with his top expert on the possibility of reopening schools.

“I was surprised by his response, actually,” he said.

“For me, it is not an acceptable response, particularly when it comes to schools.

“We are opening our country. People want it open. Schools are going to be open.”

In an interview with Fox Business, scheduled to air tomorrow, Trump will report that Fauci is “a very good person” but “I totally disagree with him in schools.”

• Covid19.govt.nz – The official government Covid-19 advisory website