Anthony Fauci leaves the White House. At the end of the year, the American immunologist will resign as medical adviser to the White House and from the direction of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), who drove for the beauty of 38 years. He announced it himself to pursue, “after 50 years of public service, a new chapter in my career as long as I have energy and passion for my field” and that “I will leave my current positions, but I am not retiring,” he added the eighty-one-year-old infectious disease specialist. “I want to do things outside of working for the federal government.” He added that he would like to encourage younger people to work in the public sector.
The US government's top physician has become perhaps the most recognizable face of the White House's response to Covid over the ages Trump – endured with clenched teeth – e Biden. Former advisor to seven presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan, the immunologist has been crucial in many other crises, before the coronavirus: AIDS, Zika virus and recently the monkeypox. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush in 2008, America's highest civilian honor.
Biden: "A stronger, more resilient and healthy United States thanks to him"
Biden, thanked him, calling him a "public official who worked with dedication, a steady hand, wisdom and with a vision". “Through Dr. Fauci's many contributions to public health, countless lives have been saved here in the United States and around the world,” the president said, adding that “the American people and the world will continue to benefit from his experience and knowledge in whatever he will do." Biden has worked closely with Fauci not only during the covid pandemic. The two had already worked during a global outbreak of the Zika virus, when Biden was vice president.
Fauci leaves the White House: the fight against Trump
It is not the first time that the leading US infectious disease expert has hinted at the possibility of going to board. Frustrated with the influence of health care policy, especially after the continues clashes with President Trump who repeatedly threatened to fire him, decided to stay when newly elected Biden asked him to ensure continuity in the response to Covid. “And so I stayed for a year thinking that at the end of the year it would be the end of Covid – explained Fauci -, and instead that's not what happened. And now we're in sophomore year and I've realized there are other things I want to do."
But let's take a step back. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Fauci was strongly criticized by the former American president by all Republicans who saw in him the symbol of the hated quarantines and masks. Trump's response to the pandemic during his presidency included spreading misinformation about the coronavirus and attempting to play down its effects, while the Italian-American doctor immediately argued for the need to impose restrictions warning of the emergency that would upset America. Words in contrast with those of the tycoon, according to whom the pandemic "would have gone away by April with the rising temperatures".
Fauci has repeatedly had to testify to Congress on the response to Covid, and had been challenged by Republican lawmakers such as Border Paul, the Senator from Kentucky who accused him of lying about research funded by his institute in China ("If anyone is lying it's you, Senator", was his reply).
Fauci, speaking Monday night on "The Rachel Maddow Show", suggested that the culture of doubt created by Trump has influenced the health of Americans, while the conspiracy theories and even the "postwar polio scourge," defeated by vaccines for seven decades, has reemerged in New York State.
“What we are dealing with now is just a distortion of reality,” he said. “A world where falsehoods are almost normalized: this is the environment in which we live. If Americans don't get the hang of the truth, lies and conspiracy theories will only hinder "an adequate response to a public health challenge."
