Polarising Covid response chief Anthony Fauci retires

Anthony Fauci will quit his position in December, amid growing infighting among US public health experts over the wisdom of mandates.

Former chief medical adviser to the US president Dr Anthony Fauci speaks to reporters. Picture: AFP

Anthony Fauci, the polarising face of America’s Covid-19 response, has said he will quit his position as the White House’s top infectious diseases expert in December, amid growing infighting among US public health experts over the wisdom of mandates.

After almost 40 years as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Mr Fauci, 81, whose advice prompted most US states to impose lengthy lockdowns, mask and vaccine mandates throughout 2020 and 2021, said he was “not retiring”, but looking forward to “pursuing the next chapter of my career”.

“After more than 50 years of government service … I still have so much energy and passion for my field,” Mr Fauci, whose recommendations to fight Covid-19 were copied around the world, said in a statement on Monday (Tuesday AEST).

President Joe Biden lauded Mr Fauci, who first rose to prominence during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, as a “dedicated public servant, and a steady hand with wisdom and insight honed over decades”.

“I know the American people and the entire world will continue to benefit from Dr Fauci’s expertise in whatever he does next … he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work,” Mr Biden, who recently recovered from Covid-19 himself, added in a statement.

Mr Fauci, who famously dismissed criticism of himself as “attacks on science”, became a highly politicised figure during the pandemic, feted by Democrats and excoriated by Republicans and civil libertarians, who argued his disease-fighting measures failed, were costly, and contrary to pre-2020 public health orthodoxy.

“I cannot think of a public servant who has done as much to save as many lives for as long a period as Dr Tony Fauci – a gem of a person,” tweeted Ron Klain, the president’s chief of staff.

The US has endured the third highest death toll per capita in the world, over one million, from or with Covid-19 during at least six ‘waves’ of the virus, behind Peru and Brazil. Federal and state public debt, as a share of GDP, has risen by more than any other developed nation except New Zealand.

Stanford University epidemiologist Jay Bhattacharya said Mr Fauci’s tenure during Covid-19 had been “divisive, rigid, and flawed”. “His advice on lockdowns, school closures and other restrictions ignored the tremendous harm done to children and other vulnerable people,” he said in a statement.

“Hospital patients were forced to die alone, small businesses were destroyed … and unvaccinated people were unjustly fired. Fauci’s recommendations ruined millions of lives and this will forever be his legacy,” wrote Alex Gutentag, a Californian columnist for Tablet magazine, on Twitter.

Mr Fauci’s announcement came after Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centre for Disease Control, a sister organisation of the NIAID, conceded last week the CDC “had not reliably meet expectations” during the pandemic, adding fresh fuel to a growing debate among experts over the efficacy of US Covid-19 policies.

More than 600 US public health experts at top US universities, in an open letter last week, sought to ‘cancel’ CNN contributor Lena Wen, among the highest profile Covid-19 experts in the US, who had earlier supported punitive measures, for recommending a ‘return to normal’.

“Dr Wen has promoted unscientific, unsafe, ableist, fatphobic and unethical practices during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the letter read, singling out her calls for optional masking and the reopening of schools.

Deborah Birx, former Trump White House co-ordinator for the Covid-19 response alongside Mr Fauci, said last month that she “knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection”.

“I think we overplayed the vaccines,” she said, noting “50 per cent of the people who died from the omicron surge were older, vaccinated”, prompting reflection on the Biden administration’s vaccination mandate for all workers, which was overturned by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

Mr Fauci, who has repeatedly dismissed the idea that Sars-Cov2, the virus that causes Covid-19, emerged from a Chinese virology lab in Wuhan, may face questioning by a congressional committee next year, should Republicans win control of Congress in November midterm elections.

“Fauci’s resignation will not prevent a full-throated investigation into the origins of the pandemic. He will be asked to testify under oath regarding any discussions he participated in concerning the lab leak,” Republican senator Rand Paul said on Twitter.