Watch: Gov. Murphy To Hold Facebook Live Chat With Dr. Fauci

NEW JERSEY – Gov. Phil Murphy will hold a Facebook Live Chat with Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Thursday, according to officials.

During his Monday COVID-19 press briefing, Murphy said the purpose of the event is to discuss the Garden State's fight against the coronavirus.

The Facebook Live Chat is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. Thursday and to view it, those interested can log on to Murphy's official Facebook page.

Fauci spoke by phone to Patch on Sept. 11 about how the battle against the coronavirus pandemic has created personal, as well as professional, challenges.

Fauci, who has helped lead the U.S. efforts against the coronavirus, has seen his life and work politicized in ways that it never has before. Throughout the early years of the AIDS crisis, a battle that is still being fought, Fauci was often targeted by activists such as the late Larry Kramer.

Things would settle down when people recognized Fauci's dedication. Even Kramer grew to like him, once saying that he grew to respect the doctor and his efforts, even calling him "a mensch," (a person of integrity and honor).

And as bad as things got, Fauci never received death threats, never needed security. Until now. The death threats led the US Marshals Service to deputize officers from the Department of Health and Human Services to act as his around-the-clock bodyguard detail.

"The things I'm talking about are absolutely apple pie and motherhood," he said. "I'm talking about public health. It's not political. It's not complicated. And that it gets people so riled up, so filled with vitriol that they are making threats against my wife and me, they are harassing my three daughters."

You can read the rest of Colin Miner's Fauci story here.

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