Dr. Anthony Fauci: “It doesn’t help” to signal about not wearing a mask
Top American virus researcher Dr. Anthony Fauci has called President Donald Trump’s sharing of a video claiming masks are not needed to fight Covid-19 “not helpful.”
The video promotes a drug that has been widely proven to be effective in treating Covid-19.
Dr.’s interview Fauci with the BBC’s Katty Kay comes at a time when the US is on the cusp of 150,000 deaths from the pandemic.
The virus continues to spread rapidly in the US as states go back into lockdown.
President Trump was among the social media users who shared on social media late Monday a video from a group called America’s Frontline Doctors advocating hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment and saying masks and shutdowns are ineffective in the fight against the coronavirus.
Facebook and Twitter removed the video and labeled it misinformation, but not before more than 17 million people watched it.
The speaker in the video also claimed there was a conspiracy to prevent the world from learning of a coronavirus “cure” led “by Fauci and the Democrats to perpetuate Covid deaths to hurt Trump” . On Tuesday, Dr. denied. Fauci said he “misled the American public under any circumstances.”
What did Dr. Fauci say?
“This tweeting and retweeting thing is something I never understood or got involved in,” Dr. Fauci told BBC News on Wednesday.
“But I can tell you that it doesn’t help if people are getting signals about not wearing masks, while we’re trying to get people to wear masks universally.”
“My feeling about what we should do about masks is very clearly understood by everyone, including those in the White House,” added Dr. Fauci, who is a member of the White House coronavirus task force and leads the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. since 1984.
Asked about Trump’s promotion of hydroxychloroquine — a drug Trump himself says he used to ward off the virus — Dr. Fauci said it would “not be productive or helpful for me to make judgments about right or wrong.”
“We know that every good study – and by good research I mean a randomized control trial where the data is robust and credible – has shown that hydroxychloroquine is not effective in treating Covid-19,” he said.
Studies commissioned by the WHO, the US National Institutes of Health and other researchers around the world have found no evidence that hydroxychloroquine – when used with or without the antibiotic azithromycin, as repeatedly recommended by President Trump – helps treat the coronavirus .
US President Trump on Dr.’s approval rating Fauci: “Nobody likes me”
‘Red zone’
A July 26 report from the White House coronavirus task force identified 21 states as being in the “red zone,” meaning they had reported more than 100 new cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.
Twenty-eight states are in the “yellow zone.” Vermont is the only state testing positive, with fewer than 10 cases per 100,000 residents over the past week.
The report calls for further closures by state governors to stem the spread of the outbreak.
‘We are still waiting at home for them to come back’
Covid medicine’
The video retweeted by Trump showed doctors speaking outside the U.S. Supreme Court building at an event organized by Tea Party Patriots Action, a group that has helped fund a pro-Trump political action committee.
In the video, Dr. Stella Immanuel, a Houston physician, says she has successfully treated 350 coronavirus patients “and counting” with hydroxychloroquine.
The president said Tuesday: “I think they are very respected doctors. There was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about that.”
They lost six weeks when the US failed to control the virus
According to the Daily BeastDr. Immanuel has previously claimed that the government is run by “reptilians” and that scientists are developing a vaccine to stop people from being religious, among other bizarre beliefs.
Simone Gold, the founder of US-based Frontline Doctors, accused social media companies of censorship for removing the hydroxychloroquine video.
“Treatment options for COVID-19 need to be discussed and debated among our colleagues in the medical community,” she tweeted. “However, they should never be censored and silenced.”
“We already lost prom and graduation…”
What is Trump’s relationship like with Dr. Fauci?
Late Monday, Trump also retweeted several tweets criticizing Dr. Fauci. But during Tuesday’s briefing, the president denied criticizing the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, insisting, “I get along with him very well.”
But he criticized Dr. Fauci’s high popularity, telling reporters, “Nobody likes me.”
“He has a high approval rating, so why don’t I have a high approval rating… regarding the virus?” he asked.
Why the US struggled with reopening
The US now has more than 4.3 million reported cases of Covid-19.
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