Fauci: Hero Or Villain In The Politics Of A Pandemic?

WASHINGTON, DC — In the time it took for the coronavirus outbreak to change from a public health emergency to a political lightning rod, Dr. Anthony Fauci went from hero to villain.

The chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for the past 35 years, Fauci has led the country through previous infectious disease outbreaks without a lot of political pushback. Fauci was a familiar face at the often-daily White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings, which ended this spring.

It was unclear Tuesday if Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx — the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force — or other health experts would attend Tuesday’s coronavirus briefing scheduled for 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

Fauci told NPR on Tuesday morning that he was glad President Donald Trump is resuming the briefings, but hadn’t been told whether he would be in attendance.

“If we, during those conferences, come out and have consistent, clear, noncontradictory messages, I believe it will be very helpful in getting people on the track of knowing the direction that we need to go to get this pandemic under control,” Fauci said, according to a report by The Associated Press.

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Trump has downplayed reports that he has lost confidence in Fauci, though he said Sunday that Fauci was “a bit of an alarmist” in his stark warnings about the coronavirus pandemic. On Tuesday, the U.S. confirmed coronavirus case total had climbed to more than 3.8 million, and more than 141,000 people had died, according to Johns Hopkins University.

“Dr. Fauci’s made some mistakes, but I have a very good — I spoke to him yesterday at length — I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci,” the president said Sunday in an interview with Fox News. “He’s a little bit of an alarmist — that’s OK.”

In response, Fauci told NBC News he is “a realist” and “an optimist.”

Among the criticisms of Fauci is that when the outbreak began, he didn’t advise Americans to wear a mask. His advice, and that of other medical experts, was based on a shortage of personal protective equipment for health care workers as hospitals began filling up with COVID-19 patients.

“I don't regret anything I said then because, in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people,” Fauci told CBS News anchor Nora O’Donnell in an interview published in InStyle magazine.

To some, Fauci — who has called the pandemic his “worst nightmare” and the attacks on him by Trump and others “bizarre” — is nothing short of an American hero. The reverence people have for him is illustrated by his selection to throw out the first ceremonial pitch Thursday in the Washington Nationals-New York Yankees game, the first in Major League Baseball’s pandemic-delayed regular season.

The Nationals described Fauci “a true champion for our country,” during the pandemic “and throughout his distinguished career.”

RELATED: Fauci To Throw Out 1st Pitch In Nationals-Yankees Game

Social media feeds describe Fauci in much the same manner.

One post being circulated on social media encourages Americans to send letters of support to Fauci to “let him know how much he’s respected and appreciated by most Americans." Other supporters of Fauci are using hashtags like #IStandWithFauci.

Fauci has encouraged elected officials across the country, especially in states still seeing increases in positive coronavirus cases, to implement stronger health safety measures, including requirements that people wear masks in public.

“What we need to do now is to learn the lesson of what happened with the recent surges,” Fauci said in the interview with O’Donnell of CBS News. “We’ve got to pause in the opening and maybe even take a step back in our phases, depending upon what state you happen to be in. I don’t want to see [the country] going back down to complete lockdown. I think that it will be very difficult for the States to accept that.

“As we try to proceed, we need to really take seriously the issue of wearing masks all the time and not congregating in bars. I think we can stop that by just closing them, because they are certainly an important mechanism of this spread. Keep distances, wash hands, avoid crowds, wear a mask … I think if we diligently do those things, we can turn this around.”

Partisan Divides On Mask-Wearing

The issue of wearing masks has taken on a political bent.

Trump, who has never encouraged Americans to wear masks, appeared to reverse course in a Monday tweet noting that “many people say that it is Patriotic to wear a face mask when you can’t socially distance.” The tweet showed the president, who has rarely been seen in public wearing a face covering, in a black mask with the presidential seal.

Pew Research Center research shows mask-wearing support falls along party lines. About seven in 10 Americans believe people should wear masks either most or the time or always when in public. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents were about twice as likely as Republicans and Republican leaners to say face masks should always be worn or be worn part of the time, 63 percent versus 29 percent.

The Pew research showed some other distinct differences on mask-wearing:

• More women than men said masks should always be worn in public places, 53 percent versus 42 percent.
• Hispanic and Black people were far more likely (63 percent and 61 percent, respectively) than white people (41 percent) to say masks should always be worn in public.
• The older Americans are, the more they support mandatory masks in public. By age group, the percent of Americans supporting mask-wearing by age group are: 18-29, 42 percent; 30-49, 44 percent; 50-64, 51 percent; 65 and older, 55 percent.
• Residents of urban areas are most likely to support mask-wearing in public by a margin of 57 percent, compared with 47 percent of suburban residents and 40 percent of rural residents.