Dr. Anthony Fauci: “Let there not be any confusion about that. It’s not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19. It’s 180+ thousand deaths.”


Donald Trump has dismissed the expertise of the Government’s top Coronavirus expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, as the US death toll nears 185,000.

Trump’s latest belittling of Fauci came as the doctor dismantled a conspiracy theory, spread by Trump supporters and hard-right attack sites, that only 9,000 Americans have perished from the virus.

Trump told Fox TV’s Laura Ingraham, misrepresenting Fauci’s views on the spread of the virus:

Every once in a while, he’ll come up with [an assessment] that I’ll say, “Where did that come from?”

I inherited him….He’s been here for 40 years….You inherit a lot of people, it’s some of the machinery. You have some you love, some you don’t. I like him. I don’t agree with him that often.

The US death toll, which Trump said in February would be “near zero”, reached 184,689 on Tuesday. Confirmed cases are now 6,075,652.

Trump — who has promoted the unproven and dangerous drug hydroxychloroquine, the ingestion of disinfectant, and ultraviolet treatment and Post Office dropboxes cause Coronavirus — insisted again, “Once you get to a certain number — you know, we use the word ‘herd,’ right? — it’s going to go away.”

He attacked Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, where the virus has been contained, and lied, “You take New York out of the equation, we have the best numbers in the world.”

Trump and his inner circle have recurrently attacked Fauci for illuminating the scale and threat of the outbreak. He and other medical experts were removed from White House briefings in late May, after Trump’s remarks on disingestant, and he has seen Trump infrequently since then. The White House also barred the doctor from interviews on mainstream US television, leading him to disseminate his messages via Webcasts, Congressional testimony, and interviews with foreign outlets.

In mid-July, Trump authorized an all-out assault by his trade advisor Peter Navarro in an opinion article in USA Today, “Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”

The initiative backfired, but Trump persisted with a retweet smearing the expert, “Dr. Fauci has misled the American public on many issues, but in particular, on dismissing #hydroxychloroquine.”

The Trump camp has now effectively replaced Fauci with Dr. Scott Atlas, a Fox TV commentator and neuroradiologist who echoes Trump’s demand for a full “reopening” of the US despite the public health risk.

Atlas speaks with Trump almost daily, in place of Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx as well as Fauci. While Atlas denies that he is pursuing a “herd immunity” strategy with a majority of the population being infected, an “administration official” said many of his proposals are along that line: “Everything he says and does points toward herd immunity.”

Atlas has rejected widespread testing, saying efforts should be only with the elderly population while everyone else “returns to normal”.

Fauci Takes Apart Conspiracy Theory

Speaking with Good Morning America on Tuesday, Fauci knocked back the conspiracy theory that only 9,000 Americans have died from Coroanvirus.

The disinformation was spread by the hard-right site Gateway Pundit and QAnon conspiracy theorists, mangling data from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control about “comorbidities” — conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and asthma — in vulnerable patients whose immediate cause of death was Covid-19. It was promoted by Trump’s advisor Jenna Ellis and retweeted by Trump.

“So the numbers that you’ve been hearing, the 180,000-plus deaths, are real deaths from COVID-19. Let there not be any confusion about that. It’s not 9,000 deaths from COVID-19. It’s 180+ thousand deaths.” Fauci said.

Fauci pushed aside Trump’s comments on Fox, “When you get statements like that, it doesn’t really reflect what is going on….We’re all on the same team.”

In a conference call with governors, he urged precautions over the forthcoming Labor Day weekend. He said he had a “great deal of faith in the American people” to wash their hands, practice social distancing, wear masks, avoid crowds, and congregate outside during the weekend celebrations.

He was careful with Atlas’s demands for full in-class instruction and complete resumption of university athletics programs, “We are the only country which is this hysterical.”

Fauci reacted, “I think it’s a little more complicated than that. Maybe it was taken out of context, and they didn’t give Atlas a chance to explain that.”

He reiterated for care and detailed measures in reopening schools: “The best way to reopen them is to decrease the level of the virus in community….Get out of the red zone, get your community or state into a yellow or green zone.”