(Washington) Immunologist Anthony Fauci said he saw in Joe Biden, the future US president, a man “very attentive to science”, and gave the administration of Donald Trump the “credit” of the success of the development of vaccines against COVID-19, in an interview with AFP on Thursday.
Posted on December 11, 2020 at 3:40 p.m.
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Member of the current White House crisis cell against the coronavirus pandemic and appointed as senior advisor on the matter by Mr. Biden, the Dr Fauci estimated that the latter was “very attentive to science, data and scientific evidence” and that his future administration would be “very attached to follow science”.
PHOTO KEVIN LAMARQUE, ARCHIVES REUTERS
The Dr Anthony Fauci took part in the press conference on Tuesday presenting the future health team of the Biden administration.
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“It’s something that President-designate Biden was doing when I knew him during the Obama administration,” said the man who notably worked with the former senator from Delaware to fight Ebola and the H1N1 flu.
“I imagine the plan [de lutte contre la pandémie], as it is developed by the new government, will be very rooted in science, ”he added.
Anthony Fauci, a highly respected medical figure, has at times been targeted by outgoing President Donald Trump, who is also widely criticized for his management of the pandemic in the United States, minimizing its dangerousness and then mocking health measures to fight against its spread.
PHOTO JONATHAN ERNST, ARCHIVES REUTERS
Donald Trump et le Dr Anthony Fauci at a press conference at the White House, March 26
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The director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Allergies (NIAID) nevertheless stressed to AFP the success of Operation Warp Speed to develop vaccines, to be credited to the Trump administration.
“Operation Warp Speed has been successful and I am sure we will continue on this path. […] Having a vaccine ready to be distributed less than a year after the virus has been identified is unprecedentedly fast, ”said Dr.r Fauci.
Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine is expected to be cleared quickly in the United States, having already received the green light in the United Kingdom, Canada, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
A second vaccine, developed by Moderna and the Dr Fauci, could be approved in the United States next week.
For the immunologist, the challenge that health authorities will now have to face is the mistrust that these vaccines developed in record time inspire some Americans, so that 70 to 75% of them receive a vaccine, thus making it possible to reach collective immunity.
“We have to speak to the people, explain to people how the process of developing these vaccines has been reliable and scientific, and that they are safe and very effective,” said Anthony Fauci.
Decisions about these vaccines are made by “independent bodies, without political or other influence. This is the truth and these are the facts, ”he said, calling for this message to be communicated“ not just to the United States but to the whole world ”.
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