White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci says he and his family have been receiving hate mail and "serious threats."
Dr. Fauci said the threats are from people angry over his advice on the coronavirus pandemic.
“There are people who get really angry at thinking I’m interfering with their life because I’m pushing a public health agenda,” he said told CNN commentator David Axelrod on a podcast interview. “The kind of not only hate mail but actual serious threats against me are not good.”
“I mean, really? Is this the United States of America? But it’s real. It really is real,” he said.
Dr. Fauci recalled being targeted for his work on finding treatments for HIV/AIDS but he considers the threats nowadays different. “It’s really a magnitude different now because [of] the amount of anger," he said.
“I’ve seen a side of society that I guess is understandable, but it’s a little bit disturbing,” he added.
Talking to Axelrod, Dr. Fauci said he believes the attacks mirror the “divisiveness of our society at [the] political level.” He stressed that the Covid-19 pandemic is a public health issue and not a political one.
“What we are talking about are fundamental principles of public health, and I don’t see how people can have animosity to that,” he said. “The hostility against public health issues is difficult to not only understand but difficult to even process.”
Dr. Fauci acknowledges the negative economic consequences of closing the country for a prolonged period of time. With this, he and other health experts are working on reopening the US safely “in a measured fashion."
Dr. Fauci's statements
The infectious disease expert previously said that states with coronavirus outbreaks must consider shutting down.
His statement comes as the US continuously records a high number coronavirus cases daily. States in the South and West reportedly drive the surge.
“What we are seeing is exponential growth. It went from an average of about 20,000 to 40,000 and 50,000. That’s doubling. If you continue doubling, two times 50 is 100,” Fauci said during a Wall Street Journal podcast.
“Any state that is having a serious problem, that state should seriously look at shutting down. It’s not for me to say because each state is different,” he noted.
He also warned young people about “propagating the pandemic.”
“You have to have responsibility for yourself but also a societal responsibility that you’re getting infected is not just you in a vacuum. You’re propagating the pandemic,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in an interview.
Dr. Fauci’s statements came as state health officials say that more young Americans are disregarding social distancing measures and testing positive for coronavirus at a higher rate. He said that the average age of a new Covid-19 patient has declined by 15 years since the start of the pandemic in the US.
The White House health advisor stressed that Americans are not observing recommended health guidelines to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
“Clearly, we have not succeeded in getting the public as a whole uniformly to respond in a way that is a sound scientific, public health and medical situation,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an interview with CBS News Radio’s Steven Portnoy.
“And it’s unfortunate. And it’s frustrating,” he said.
