Dr. Anthony Fauci has a word for his industry colleagues.
In a conversation with the American Medical Association, Fauci, director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said physicians need to be careful about their public statements. “Stay completely apolitical,” he said. “Don’t get involved in any of the political aspects, and just focus on what your job is as a scientist and a physician. You do that, you’ll be fine.”
Speaking to AMA Executive Vice President and CEO James Madara, Fauci said there have been significant improvements in treatment regarding when it’s best to put people on ventilators and how much oxygen to administer during intubation. “We just get better at treating the disease. We know what works, what doesn’t work,” he said.
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‘Don’t get involved in any of the political aspects, and just focus on what your job is as a scientist and a physician. You do that, you’ll be fine.’
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“We know that dexamethasone clearly diminishes the death rate in people requiring mechanical ventilation and/or people who require high-flow oxygen,” Fauci said during the interview on Saturday. “We have remdesivir for hospitalized patients who have lung involvement.” Using anticoagulants for some patients is also increasingly common for COVID-19 treatment, he said.
On Monday, Pfizer
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and BioNTech
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said their vaccine candidate BNT162b2 is 90% effective in first interim analysis of Phase 3 study in participants without previous evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Speaking before Pfizer and BioNTech released their vaccine news, Fauci said a vaccine with an efficacy of 70% to 75% would be going in the right direction.
As of Monday, the U.S. had reported nearly 10 million COVID-19 infections and 237,587 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, just ahead of India (nearly 8.5 million cases to date). The U.S. has a population of 328 million people, compared to 1.35 billion in India. The U.S. daily tally of infections topped 100,000 on Sunday, a fifth straight day of record-setting levels.
Fauci has walked a fine line between educating the public about coronavirus and President Trump. Last month, Trump took aim at Fauci on a campaign call and on Twitter
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calling him a “disaster” in a campaign call and bemoaning his media appearances, but the veteran immunologist told Americans to follow the scientific data, and to stay out of the political fray.
“Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb,” Trump said, according to the Associated Press. “But there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci’s a disaster.” Trump added, “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.”
On Twitter, the president, 74, also criticized Fauci’s media appearances urging people to wear masks and socially distance, and appeared to be rankled by the doctor’s media exposure: “Dr.Tony Fauci says we don’t allow him to do television, and yet I saw him last night on @60Minutes, and he seems to get more airtime than anybody since the late, great, Bob Hope.”
Fauci, meanwhile, has given the American public the same advice he gave fellow scientists over the weekend. “My advice to young people is — unless you want to be a politician — stay away from the politics and let science and good data guide your policy.” Fauci added, “We’re going through a time that’s disturbingly anti-science in certain segments of our society.”