Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has responded to his newly released public emails, which were shared with the public Wednesday.
What did Fauci’s emails say?
Fauci’s emails showed how he responded to questions and concerns from public health officials, journalists and media members at the beginning of the pandemic, as I explained for the Deseret News.
The emails showed Fauci’s hectic schedule as he answered questions about the coronavirus. He also attempted to calm fears among those who emailed him.
- In one email, Fauci said a “vaccine is out of the question for at least a year or more.”
How did Fauci respond?
Fauci responded to the emails in interviews with CNN and NewsNation. He said in the NewsNation interview that his comments could be taken out of context.
- “The only trouble is they are really ripe to be taken out of context where someone can snip out a sentence in an email without showing the other emails and say, ‘based on an email from Dr. Fauci, he said such-and-such,’ where you don’t really have the full context,” Fauci said.
Were Fauci’s emails different than public statements?
Per USA Today, a number of his private statements sent in emails were about in line with what he said in public.
For example, in the private emails sent at the beginning of the pandemic when masks were a heavily debated issue, Fauci spoke with health officials about how face masks would stop people from spreading the novel coronavirus to each other, rather than protecting people from getting it, according to USA Today. His private comments match his public comments.
- In an email, Fauci said: “Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus. ... I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location. ...”
- In an interview with CNN, Fauci had said: “A lot of people are wearing masks that don’t need them. A lot of people feel that they need to be wearing masks, even though, unless you’re right in the middle of a situation where’s a lot of people coughing and sneezing.”