Coronavirus: US turning on its top expert, Dr Anthony Fauci

The United States is turning on its most prominent coronavirus expert Dr Anthony Fauci, with increasingly vocal critics labelling him a “buffoon”.

The United States is starting to turn on its top coronavirus expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, with prominent voices in the country’s media suggesting he has too much influence.

Dr Fauci, an expert in infectious diseases who’s led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since the 1980s, has been President Donald Trump’s most visible scientific adviser throughout the crisis.

He serves on the White House’s coronavirus task force, and often appears at the President’s televised media briefings.

In recent weeks, as Mr Trump has urged states to reopen their economies, Dr Fauci has been more circumspect, stressing the risks that come with lifting restrictions prematurely.

RELATED: Fauci warns reopening could cause ‘needless suffering and death’

President Trump and Dr Fauci during one of the White House’s coronavirus briefings. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

That apparent division between the President and his adviser was on display yesterday when Dr Fauci fronted a Senate hearing. He said America should be “focused on the proven public health practices of containment and mitigation”.

The US has recorded 1.4 million confirmed cases of the virus, and its death toll stands at 85,000. Reopening too quickly, Dr Fauci said, could cause another spike in deaths.

“There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control, and in fact paradoxically, will set you back – not only leading to some suffering and death that could be avoided, but could even set you back on the road to try to get economic recovery,” he told the senators.

His comments were met with scepticism by some of the senators from Mr Trump’s Republican Party.

“As much as I respect you, Dr Fauci, I don’t think you are the end-all. I don’t think you’re the one person who gets to make a decision,” said Senator Rand Paul, from Kentucky. Senator Paul is also a physician.

“We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there is not going to be a surge, and that we can safely reopen the economy. And the facts will bear this out.

“I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom, and saying, ‘Oh we can’t do this, there’s going to be a surge,’ will admit they were wrong if there is not a surge. Because I think that is what’s going to happen.”

Senator Paul said he was particularly keen to see schools across the country reopen.

“If we keep kids out of school for another year, what’s going to happen is, the poor and underprivileged kids who don’t have a parent that’s able to teach them at home are not going to learn for a full year,” he said.

“I think we ought to look at the Swedish model and we ought to look at letting our kids get back to school. I think it’s a huge mistake if we don’t open the schools in the fall.”

RELATED: Scott Morrison again insists it is safe for kids to go to school

Sweden never shut its schools, and has not imposed the stringent lockdown measures seen in many other countries. Businesses like restaurants and clubs have stayed open, albeit with social distancing guidelines enforced. There is a modest 50-person restriction on public gatherings.

The country has recorded 28,000 cases of the virus and 3460 deaths. According to Johns Hopkins University, it has a mortality rate of 33 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, which is a little higher than America (25), but significantly lower than some other European countries, such as Belgium (76), Spain (58), Italy (51) and the United Kingdom (49).

In case you’re wondering, Australia’s figure is 0.4 deaths per 100,000 people.

Responding to Senator Paul, Dr Fauci stressed there were still many things scientists did not understand about the virus.

“I have never made myself out to be the end-all and only voice in this,” he said.

“I’m a scientist, a physician and a public health official. I give advice according to the best scientific evidence.

“I don’t give advice about economic things, I don’t give advice about anything other than public health.

“We don’t know everything about this virus. And we really better be very careful, particularly when it comes to children. Because the more and more we learn, we’re seeing things about what this virus can do that we didn’t see from the studies in China or Europe.”

Dr Fauci pointed to the example of young children, infected with the coronavirus, who have presented with a “very strange inflammatory syndrome”, similar to Kawasaki disease.

RELATED: Mysterious disease killing children with coronavirus

“I think we’d better be careful if we are not cavalier in thinking that children are completely immune to the deleterious effects,” he said.

“I don’t know everything about this disease, and that’s why I am very reserved about making broad predictions.”

Senators listening to Dr Fauci’s testimony. That is Rand Paul on the right. Picture: Win McNamee/AP

Dr Fauci’s testimony, and particularly his exchange with Senator Paul, drew a strong response from the commentariat.

“The children must stay home or countless people could die. That’s the message. It’s time to ask a very simple question – how does he know this, exactly?” asked Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“Is Tony Fauci right about the science? Do we have any particular reason to think he is right?

“Right now there is an awful lot of evidence indicating that America should cautiously reopen.”

Carlson said Senator Paul was correct to question the expertise of health officials.

“A lot of wrong predictions have come out of Washington on the question of the coronavirus, and quite a few of them came directly from Dr Fauci himself,” he said.

“We are not singling him out or attacking him. We’ve certainly made a lot of wrong predictions on this show. But we’re not in charge of the entire country.”

He played a few examples of seemingly conflicting advice Dr Fauci had given throughout the pandemic. In one clip, Dr Fauci told Americans not to shake hands. In another, he said they should “weigh the risks” of hooking up with strangers, but stopped short of forbidding it.

“This is buffoon-level stuff, at that point,” Carlson said, going on to label Dr Fauci the “chief buffoon of the professional class”.

“We’re not doing this to mock the guy. Anybody who talks as much as Anthony Fauci does is apt to say some stupid things. The point is, is this the guy into whom you want to vest all of your trust? Is this the guy you want to chart the future of the country? Maybe not.

“This is a very serious matter, the decisions we’re making right now. Tony Fauci has not been elected to anything. He’s had the same job for nearly 40 years. That means the majority of American voters never even indirectly picked him for the role he has now. This is not the result of any kind of democratic process at work at all.

“Yet in the last four months, Dr Fauci has become one of the most powerful people in the world. Some, particularly in our media and in our Democratic establishment, are clamouring to give Dr Fauci even more power. Why?

“Some people think that he should be dictator for the duration of the crisis. That’s insanity. Dr Fauci, like every other human being, is flawed. He says things that are wise, he says things that are profoundly silly.

“He is not the one person who should be in charge when it comes to making long term recommendations. This guy, Fauci, may be even more off-base than your average epidemiologist.”

“Tony Fauci has not been elected to anything...the majority of American voters never even indirectly picked him.”

Fox News host Tucker Carlson attacked Dr. Facui on his show last night, after the infectious disease expert cautioned the nation of reopening too soon. pic.twitter.com/sFD1A1rEM9

— COURIER (@CourierNewsroom) May 13, 2020

Later in the evening, Carlson’s Fox News colleague Sean Hannity tied his own criticism of Dr Fauci into a broader argument for restrictions to end.

“The left is now waging a non-stop campaign of fear and hysteria, despite declining COVID-19 infection rates, hospitalisations, deaths – well, Democrats, the mob and the media, they seem to want to keep this country locked down indefinitely,” Hannity said.

“Dr Anthony Fauci also seems to favour what the Democrats want. And that is massive restrictions, with no end in sight.

“There is no secret that he, like so many others, has been wrong a lot.”

And another colleague, Laura Ingraham, mocked the idea of America being “ruled by the expert class”.

“In the end it would mean that Americans would be poorer and less free,” she said.

“No work unless it’s approved by experts. No worship services, no ball games, no concerts, no travel to see your family or friends. Not at least until we have a vaccine.

“With all due respect to Dr Fauci’s expertise, no one elected him to anything.”

Dr Fauci also copped criticism on The View overnight. Co-host Meghan McCain – daughter of the late senator John McCain – told him he had been “really wrong on a lot of things”.

“‘You don’t have to wear masks’, to ‘2.2 million people are going to die’, to ‘we need millions of ventilators’, to, now, ‘we have so many ventilators we don’t know what to do with (them)’,” she said, suggesting Dr Fauci’s advice had repeatedly shifted.

“I think there has to be more than just, ‘We’re locking down the country for the foreseeable future’,” she added, echoing Senator Paul’s argument.

Dr Fauci during a White House briefing. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP

Others in politics and the media have leapt to Dr Fauci’s defence.

Writing for Politico, conservative columnist Rich Lowry argued “Fauci is not the villain”.

“He is neither the dastardly bureaucratic mastermind imposing his will on the country that his detractors on the right make him out to be, nor the philosopher-king in waiting that his boosters on the left inflate him into,” Lowry wrote.

“He’s simply an epidemiologist, one who brings considerable expertise and experience to the table, but at the end of the day, his focus is inevitably and rightly quite narrow.

“This is why it’s a tautology for Fauci’s critics to say that he’s focused on the disease above all other considerations. This is like saying the Commerce Secretary is too consumed with finding business opportunities for American companies, or the head of the Joint Special Operations Command has an unhealthy obsession with killing terrorists.

“What else are they supposed to do?”

Dr. Fauci is one of the finest public servants we have ever had. He is not a partisan. His only interest is saving lives. We need his expertise and his judgment to defeat this virus. All Americans should be thanking him. Every day.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) May 13, 2020

Fauci has been studying science since college in 1957. He has been the country’s infectious-disease leader since 1984. Yet many who have “studied” this virus for 10 weeks feel it fair and righteous to call him a fraud and believe media screamers.
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We need to trust scientists.

— Peter King (@peter_king) May 13, 2020

Few things illustrate the utter servility and fear of the Trump right more than the relentless attacks on Fauci -- a man nine miles down the org chart from POTUS -- rather than on Trump, the man who actually set the policies they hate.

— David French (@DavidAFrench) May 13, 2020

Mr Trump himself was only mildly critical of Dr Fauci when he was asked about his Senate testimony during a White House event today.

Mr Trump did acknowledge he had a strong difference of opinion with his top expert on the prospect of reopening schools.

“I was surprised by his answer, actually,” he said.

“To me, it’s not an acceptable answer, particularly when it comes to schools.

“We’re opening our country. People want it open. The schools are going to be open.”

In an interview with Fox Business, set to air tomorrow, Mr Trump will reportedly say Dr Fauci is “a very good person” but “I totally disagree with him on schools”.