Would Fauci attend Trump’s political rallies despite coronavirus? ‘Of course not’
White House coronavirus expert Dr. Anthony Fauci, in several interviews this week, said he would not attend President Donald Trump’s political rallies because of the ongoing pandemic.
Fauci also said the United States is still in its first wave of COVID-19 infections as cases continue to grow in some states, according to an interview with the Wall Street Journal.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been a prominent member of the White House coronavirus task force. He told NPR’s 1A that he hasn’t spoken with Trump for two weeks.
The president is planning to hold large in-person rallies starting this weekend even as case numbers continue to increase in many areas. Asked if he would attend the rallies, Fauci reportedly told The Daily Beast, “No.”
“I’m in a high risk category. Personally, I would not. Of course not,” Fauci said. For political rallies, he added, “outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd.”
“We are seeing infections to a greater degree than they had previously seen in certain states, including states in the southwest and in the South,” Fauci told The Daily Beast on Tuesday. “I don’t like to talk about a second wave right now, because we haven’t gotten out of our first wave.”
According to The Washington Post, nine states reported their highest coronavirus case numbers Tuesday: North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Arizona, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas.
“When I look at the TV and I see pictures of people congregating at bars when the location they are indicates they shouldn’t be doing that, that’s very risky,” Fauci said in a separate interview with The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.
Fauci told NPR’s “1A” that he was concerned about the “all or none” approach that some states have taken to reopening. “It isn’t as if you stay locked down or you open up and leave caution to the wind,” he said.
He told NPR that crowds gathering without taking precautions are “almost asking for trouble.”
A second wave of coronavirus cases is “not inevitable,” but people have to follow guidelines to keep the virus from spreading, Fauci said.
He told the NPR program states that reopen must be able to “isolate and contact trace so that when you see the inevitable blips, in cases, that those blips don’t become surges, and those surges don’t become a second wave.”
While testing has increased in many states, there’s still a high percentage of those tests coming back positive, according to The Wall Street Journal. The higher numbers of people with the virus, he said, “cannot be explained by increased testing.”
This story was originally published June 17, 2020 at 12:48 PM.
