Dr. Fauci on CNN’s Tapper Show: Earlier Mitigation Could Have Saved Lives

[mystery-ak]

Pam Key 12 Apr 2020

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci said if President Donald Trump had listened to top officials who wanted the shutdown to begin in February, fewer lives would have been lost to the coronavirus pandemic.

Host Jake Tapper asked, “The New York Times reported yesterday that you and other top officials wanted to recommend social and physical distancing guidelines to President Trump as far back as the third week of February, but the administration didn’t announce such guidelines to the American public until March 16th, almost a month later. Why?”

Fauci said, “As I’ve said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often the recommendation is taken. Sometimes it’s not. But it is what it is. we are where we are right now.”

Tapper said, “Do you think lives could have been saved if social distancing, physical distancing, stay-at-home measures, had started the third week of February instead of mid-March?”

more
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/04/12/fauci-obviously-if-trump-had-listened-to-our-recommendations-we-could-have-saved-lives/

[mystery-ak]

Fauci is a little weasel and I don't trust him for a second.

[Free Vulcan]

Fauci is a little weasel and I don't trust him for a second.

I don't either. He seems to be trying to undermine things more than help.

[Fishrrman]

What is it they say about hindsight?

I'll reckon it applies to doctors, too.

[jmyrlefuller]

Well, duh. Maybe if New York City had noticed something fishy was going on when the hospitalizations began to spike we wouldn't be in this situation, would we be?

[Right_in_Virginia]

Well, duh. Maybe if New York City had noticed something fishy was going on when the hospitalizations began to spike we wouldn't be in this situation, would we be?

Error 404 (Not Found)!!1

[Right_in_Virginia]

Top disease official: Risk of coronavirus in USA is 'minuscule'; skip mask and wash hands
USA Today, Feb 19, 2020

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be testing for the coronavirus in people in five major cities who show up at clinics with flu-like symptoms but who test negative for the seasonal varieties.

If that testing shows the virus has slipped into the country in places federal officials don't know about, "we've got a problem," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told USA TODAY's Editorial Board Monday.

Short of that, Fauci says skip the masks unless you are contagious, don't worry about catching anything from Chinese products and certainly don't avoid Chinese people or restaurants. 

"Whenever you have the threat of a transmissible infection, there are varying degrees from understandable to outlandish extrapolations of fear," Fauci said.

Government agencies, including Fauci's own at the National Institutes of Health, are being inundated with calls and emails from nervous people, just as they were during the Ebola and SARS scares.

Fauci recalled how a nurse who was infected with Ebola took a flight to Ohio because she was asymptomatic and not at risk of infecting anyone. People everywhere suddenly thought all planes were unsafe.

"I was getting calls from people in Sacramento saying, 'Can I get on an airplane to go to Seattle?'" Fauci said. "Like, what? What does that got to do with anything?"

Other advice from Fauci and Dr. Stephen Hahn, Food and Drug Administration commissioner,  includes:

•Chinese products. Coronavirus is predominantly spread in the air from humans to humans. "Inanimate things" that are placed in a container in China and sent to the U.S. don't carry any risk of transmitting the virus, Fauci said. Neither do medications made in China. 

Imported shipments of FDA-regulated products, including from China, are reviewed by the FDA and have to meet the same standards as domestic products, Hahn said in a statement late Friday.

"We want to reassure the public that at this time there is no evidence that food or food packaging have been associated with transmission and no reason to be concerned," Hahn said. "Further, there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with imported goods, including food and drugs for humans and pets, and there have not been any cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. associated with imported goods."

•Masks. The only people who need masks are those who are already infected to keep from exposing others. The masks sold at drugstores aren't even good enough to truly protect anyone, Fauci said.

"If you look at the masks that you buy in a drug store, the leakage around that doesn't really do much to protect you," he said. "People start saying, 'Should I start wearing a mask?' Now, in the United States, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask."

Fauci doesn't want people to worry about coronavirus, the danger of which is "just minuscule." But he does want them to take precautions against the "influenza outbreak, which is having its second wave."

"We have more kids dying of flu this year at this time than in the last decade or more," he said. "At the same time people are worrying about going to a Chinese restaurant. The threat is (we have) a pretty bad influenza season, particularly dangerous for our children."

Fauci offered advice for people who want to protect against the "real and present danger" of seasonal flu, which also would protect against the hypothetical danger of coronavirus.

"Wash your hands as frequently as you can. Stay away from crowded places where people are coughing and sneezing. If in fact you are coughing and sneezing, cover your mouth," he says.

"You know, all the things that we say each year."


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-disease-official-anthony-fauci-risk-of-coronavirus-in-u-s-is-minuscule-skip-mask-and-wash-hands/4787209002/

[GtHawk]

It's so obvious, Trump has some dirt on Fauci and forced him to make those statements and now he is forcing Fauci to make these on Tapers show because, because.........................ORANGE MAN BAD..............that's why!

[txradioguy]

That sure isn’t what he was saying back in January IIRC

[TomSea]

It appears like a coordinated attack with the NY Times article, Chris Wallace interview according to some folks.... I'm not sure if it was posted here yet, Trump RTeed out some tweet saying Fauci should be fired.

I've got to think this out, it's terrible how the nursing homes have suffered.