Dr. Anthony Fauci is now being touted as the truthsayer for the coronavirus pandemic, but there was a time when the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases urged the public not to be too worried about COVID-19.
As Moguldom Nation founder Jamarlin Martin recently tweeted, “Trump gets the blame for setting people up for COVID in the lungs but Dr. Fauci downplayed it on his own.”
When 380 Americans aboard a cruise ship in Japan were quarantined in February because of a virus outbreak, Fauci, who now seems to be at odds with Trump, sounded more like the president in his lack of concern. Fauci told Spectrum News 13 at the time: “There is no circulating sustained transmission of coronavirus in the United States. We have 15 cases that have been identified, isolated, and their contacts have been traced.”
Fauci, who is on the White House coronavirus task force, insisted that the public should be more worried about the flu.
“The flu is a real and present issue that we are going through right now,” Fauci told News 13. “We’re so used to every year having the seasonal flu that we sort of take it for granted. It’s part of life. And yet each year it kills from (30,000) to 79, 80,000 in our worst year.”
Did the doctor aid in the government’s delayed response to the pandemic? Some experts say yes, despite Fauci’s now-urgent remarks about the virus.
Although the CDC is now weighing if the general public should wear masks, Fauci discouraged it months ago.
“I think there’s this misperception that wearing a mask, even if you were in an area where there was transmission, is going to absolutely protect you,” Fauci said. “A mask is more appropriate for someone who is infected to prevent them from infecting someone else.”
Fauci downplayed the COVID-19 impact on other occasions. During a January 2020 episode of The CATS Roundtable radio show, he said, “The American people should not be worried or frightened by this. It’s a very, very low risk to the United States. It isn’t something that the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about.”
Despite his past remarks, Fauci is now being praised by some media commentators as the “most “trusted” voice on COVID-19.
The 79-year-old Fauci has worked for multiple presidents from Ronald Reagan to Trump. He is considered the government’s top infectious disease expert.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 70: Jamarlin Martin Jamarlin goes solo to discuss the COVID-19 crisis. He talks about the failed leadership of Trump, Andrew Cuomo, CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and New York Mayor de Blasio.
Fauci, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2008, became the Trump administration’s “go-to representative because U.S. citizens trust him, according to polls. “The top scientist has bluntly said that the coronavirus pandemic will get worse in the U.S. and criticized the federal government on certain aspects of its response,” Al Jazeera reported.
Fauci became head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984 during the AIDS crisis.
Now, despite his previous statements and after more than 5,000 people have died in the U.S. from COVID-19, Fauci says coronavirus is at least 10 times “more lethal” than the seasonal flu.”
