Fauci has entered the waiting room
Do dodod
Hi, Wendy here -- you're listening to Science Vs from Gimlet. Today, we got to catch up with Dr Anthony Fauci.
Dododod
We talked about omicron, how this pandemic actually ends… and how he’s fighting back against the haters. Let's jump in.
Fauci: Hi, Wendy, how are you?
Wendy: I'm good, how are you doing? Have you have you managed to get in your power walk today?
Fauci: No, no. I think I'm going to have to do that tonight.
Wendy: Great.
Fauci: Sometimes very late. Haha
Wendy: Tell us it's been a big, big week with Omicron. Was that a bit of an oh crap moment for you?
Fauci: Yeah, you know, it's just it doesn't get better it seems, it just gets worse. So we just got to deal with it. You know, one of the things about omicron is that there's still a lot of unknowns about it
Wendy: You said it only seems to get worse, so you're not feeling optimistic. I know when we spoke about pandemics a million years ago, you said, you know, the virus tends to evolve out of being more deadly because it's advantageous for the virus.[1][2] You don't think we're there yet with Omicron?
Fauci: You know, I don't know. I mean, that's a good question. Is omicron going to spread more easily and yet be more benign? That's a possibility, but I wouldn't count on it. You know, we really need to see what happens because, you know, we can have a lot of conjecture but really, we're only going to have to go with what the data tells us. Thus far, the cases that have been reported. Appear to be of not any real severe manifestations, but the numbers are so small it would really be premature to make any determination as to the level of severity associated with omicron.
Wendy: Based on what we're seeing right now, is omicron moving faster than delta did?
Fauci: You know, we don't know. It seems to be getting a real transmission advantage in South Africa. You can't say anything about the United States because we have a such a small number of infections which guaranteed are going to every day, even as we're speaking. There's going to be more and more cases in more and more states. But if you look at the the kinetics of the increase in South Africa, it it looks like within the conditions that are existing in South Africa, it clearly has a transmission advantage over delta, because in South Africa, they had a big spike and then it came back down was really low level. Now they have a big spike and whenever they sequence it -- the overwhelming majority of it is omicron. So omicron is spiking.[3][4][5][6][7][8]
Wendy: Nice pun
Fauci: Yeah, So it's it's, you know, we'll get it sorted out, but we're not going to get it sorted out by the weekend. It's, you know, it's going to take it's going to take probably a few weeks to really understand what's going on.
Wendy: So let's talk about the the travel bans. So the US brought in travel bans against eight countries in southern Africa,[9] you know, to buy time and try to slow this thing down for the U.S.. But there are other countries like the Netherlands and Norway, where we're seeing local transmission of Omicron,[10] but there haven't been any travel bans there. Is that good science? Like what's going on?
Fauci: Well, you know, it's not good science or bad science. It's just having. When we first saw and heard about what was going on in South Africa, we really were blind. We had no idea what was going to happen. And one of the things we wanted to do, which is understandable, was to best as possible, protect the American public. So that ban went on for South Africa and surrounding countries. I don't like the idea about bans, but as long as it's temporary, you know? But your point is very well taken. We did not know it was in other countries at the time of the ban. It looked like it was just in South Africa. There was a, you know, a case in Belgium, which is probably, you know, a travel case. But right now, you're right, it is out there, so it's going to spread no matter what. So that's the reason why I would feel that hopefully we can pull back on that ban as quickly as possible.
Wendy: Right. Because it felt like it was a little more politicians maybe showing they're doing something rather than it actually making sense with the data we have now at least.
Fauci: Yeah but you know, Wendy, one thing is sure since I've been to this movie before, as they say that if we did not do it, we would have been crucified for not doing it. You know that
Wendy: Right, well I'll crucify you no matter what!! No, of course not.
Wendy: So with, one discussion scientists I think we've even talked about it is that we need to be vaccinating people all around the world to avoid these mutations happening. the US cannot isolate itself. So do you think? Speaking of... speaking of crucifying, it being the Monday morning quarterback, do you think it was a mistake that the US didn't send more vaccines into countries in Africa faster?
Fauci: No. You know, Wendy, that theoretically you're correct in your concept, but practically that's not the case. Let me tell you what the facts are
Wendy: Please
Fauci: and they will speak for themselves. So the United States has sent about two hundred and ninety five million doses to 110 countries.[11] You know, something like 90 million of which are in Africa.[12] We have given or pledged 1.1 billion doses for low and middle income countries.[13] The United States has given more doses to the rest of the world than the entire world combined. Combined! and we've worked with the companies to make more surge capacity to their production, not for ourselves, but to give to low and middle income countries. And the tragic part of it, Wendy, is that the African countries are telling us, don't send us any more vaccine. We can't get it into people's arms. So vaccine is going unused, and several African countries have said, please don't send us any more right now, we can't utilize it.
Fauci: So, what I think we need to do is we need to help them to get the infrastructure to be able to distribute vaccines. The other complicating issue is that they have a lot of vaccine hesitancy. That's really a problem.
Wendy: And then so that's that's another movie you've been to before here in the US, the a the anti-vax movie. So. So tell me, with vaccine hesitancy here in the U.S., I mean, I personally am tired and feeling very hopeless with many Americans that have and, and Australians, you know, and all around the world, the people who have access to vaccines and who are not getting vaccinated. I've heard you say, you know, we cannot abandon them. I've heard you speak with such hope that we will accomplish this. Like, how... where is your optimism coming from at this point?
Fauci: Well, I am both a cautious optimist and a realist. At the same time, if that isn't an oxymoron, maybe, maybe not. But you know, it gets down to something has got to happen I hope -- to get people to realize that this is not a political football here. This is the safety and the health of the American public and the world. And what we really do have is is a profound degree of divisiveness in our country where people are not getting vaccinated merely because they want to show that they cannot get vaccinated if they don't want to get vaccinated, which is, you know, really not the time to manifest your individuality. You know, do it — use another channel to show what an individual you are
Wendy: Maybe buy a fun, you know, jersey or something?
Fauci: Yeah, something like that. But the idea when you have 780,000 Americans have already died from COVID 19[14], the idea — the science is so clear -- that vaccines are highly effective and safe. We know that boosters elevated degree of protection multi multi multifold more than the two dose Moderna or Pfizer or the one dose J and J. And yet the thing that's so stunning about it is that when you have people like me and my colleagues, pleading with people to wear a mask or to get vaccinated that that results in death threats. You know, what's your I mean, what's what's going on in this country? You know, you know, harassing your family and your wife and your children because you're out there telling people they really need to get vaccinated. Boy, there's something really wrong in this country when that happens.
Wendy: Did you know that America was full of jabronis?
Fauci: Haha. You know, we have a very diversified country in that respect. You know, so I would hope that we can appeal to I mean, I don't think the people who are not getting vaccinated, they certainly are not stupid. They certainly, I don't think, have any malicious intent. I mean, I can't believe that they do. But somehow, somewhere they have conflated the idea of a public health issue into a political context, which is really unfortunate. I mean, I'm all I'm not a politician and I have no political affiliations at all. And I could understand, you know, play out your politics in a different way, but don't do it when you're risking the health of the nation, which is what's going on by people not wanting to get vaccinated
Wendy: And the world
Fauci: And the world, right, and the world.
Wendy: And you know, it really does seem like the personal attacks on you are ratcheting up. You know, Fox News has recently gone wild. But one thing that I have noticed is you are pushing back harder. Just a couple of sassy quotes from you that you've said recently, you know, "I'm just doing my job and I'm going to be saving lives and they're going to be lying."[15]
You've told Republican Senator Rand Paul, you don't know what you're talking about[16] quite frankly. I love the quite frankly, very polite. You know, is this your is this your inner Brooklyn coming out?
Fauci: No, I don't know. It just got to the point that I don't want to waste time having to respond to all that nonsense. But every once in a while, when people step over the line, you've got to call them on it. I mean, you know, when you get somebody like Rand Paul saying, I'm responsible for the death of five million[17] people at a Senate hearing, I mean, that is totally off the wall. Way out there. So I had to call him on that and that crazy lady from Fox, whatever her name is Lara Logan saying that I'm comparable to Josef Mengele.[18] I mean, of course, I'm not going to stand by and let her say that. So.
Wendy: Despite all of this and you know -- you said you want to stay in this role until the pandemic is is over or in the rearview mirror. What does that look like to you?
Fauci: Well, I think that gets to the point where we have enough control over the virus, we're not going to eradicate this virus. We've only done that with one virus, which was smallpox. I don't think we're going to eliminate it like we've done with polio and measles. But I do think we can get a much greater element of control than we have right now. And having 95,000 new cases a day[19] is not the level of control that I'm talking about. We've got to by vaccination, by masking, by boosting — we've got to get that level to a very, very low level to the point where it does not interfere with our lifestyle. It doesn't become the dominant thing we all talk about. It doesn't impact negatively our economy. It doesn't inhibit kids from feeling safe at school. That's what I'm talking about by a level of control where we could put this behind us and have it in the rearview mirror, as I've said
Wendy: And so then it starts to look a little more like a like a good year of the flu. Is that kind of your thinking?
Fauci: Yeah. Just yeah, either that or even better than that, even less than that because we have much better vaccines for COVID-19 than we have for flu. So theoretically, we should do much better than even flu with the with the interventions and the countermeasures that we have.
Wendy: All right. Last question. Just between us and of course, our listeners, when it comes to hand-washing, I'm down to 10 seconds. Are you still doing 30 seconds[20][21]?
Fauci: Well, I never, I'm often not near a faucet, but I have this?
Wendy: Your Hand Santizer
Fauci: I do about I do 10 or 20 seconds with this, but I generally do at least 20 seconds when I wash my hands
Wendy: All right -- Thank you so much for your time.
Fauci: My pleasure. Good to be with you.
That was Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the Chief Medical Advisor to the US President. … and by the way, quick fact check — Rand Paul blamed Fauci for the deaths of a mere FOUR million people, not five …
And if you’d like to know more about omicron and boosters, yesterday we at Science Vs released a whole episode exploring the science around this -- how bad omicron might be and how our vaccines might stack up against it. So go check it out in our feed.
That’s Science Vs.
Mix and sound design by Daniel Ramirez. Find our full credits in the show notes.
I'm Wendy Zukerman, fact you next time.
[1] Our Pandemic!!! Episode from Oct. 11, 2019
[2] Modelling paper: The transition from epidemic to endemic dynamics is associated with a shift in the age distribution of primary infections to lower age groups (Fig. 2A). This transition may take anywhere from a few years to a few decades, depending on how quickly the pathogen spreads.
However, whether the SARS-CoV-2 virus will eventually evolve into a more virulent virus is less predictable, as virulence is not necessarily a selectable phenotypic trait that increases the fitness of the virus … Nevertheless, the evolution of the virus to the low level of virulence seen in common-cold coronaviruses may not occur or may take several decades to manifest.
[3] WHO: this variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage.
[4] Earliest detection in South Africa: 8 November, Gauteng… Omicron dominates November sequencing data at 74% of genomes (n=183/249)
[5]Today [Dec 1, 2021] the institute reports 8,561 new COVID-19 cases that have been identified in South Africa, [this is double the number of cases from the previous day, 4,373] ...This increase represents a 16.5% positivity rate. ...The proportion of positive new cases/total new tested today is 16.5% which higher than yesterday (10.7%)...
[6]raw data from South Africa. See “Total Daily Cases” data from November.
[7] Slight increase in hospitalizations as well: See the upper left graph in the “DAILY HOSPITAL SURVEILLANCE (DATCOV) REPORT” from Thursday December 2, 2021.
[8] From the Agence France Presse: There had been an "exponential increase" over the past two weeks, from a weekly average of around 300 new cases per day to 1,000 last week and most recently 3,500, said Michelle Groome of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD). "The degree of increase is worrying," Groome added.
[9] CNN Travel bans by country
President Joe Biden said "I've decided we're going to be cautious," before announcing restrictions against non-citizens entering the United States from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.
[11] https://www.state.gov/covid-19-recovery/vaccine-deliveries/ As of 12/02/21 283,055,690
[12] Checked 12/03/21
MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA: To date, we have donated 14,922,950 vaccine doses to 8 countries and the Palestinian Territories (West Bank and Gaza Strip).
SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: To date, we’ve provided 79,673,970 vaccine doses to 43 countries
[13] White House: Sept. 22. 2021 - Today, President Biden will announce that the U.S. is donating an additional half a billion Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines to low and lower-middle income countries around the globe, with shipments starting in January 2022. This monumental commitment brings the total number of vaccines donated by the U.S. to over 1.1 billion doses, including the 500 million Pfizer-BioNTech doses the U.S. already purchased in June and began shipping in August.
[14] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailydeaths 783,215 per CDC as of 12/3 tracker
[17] https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fauci-rand-paul-shouting-match-wuhan-lab-research/story?id=78946568 NB 4 MILLION "Let me finish!" Fauci said, when Paul tried to interject. "Sen. Paul, you do not know what you're talking about, quite frankly. And I want to say that officially, you do not know what you're talking about."
[19] https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailycases 7-day moving average of U.S. cases on Dec. 2, 2021: 96,425
[20]Duration of the entire procedure: 20-30 seconds https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Hand_Hygiene_Why_How_and_When_Brochure.pdf
[21] Scrubbing your hands for at least 20-30 seconds is most effective. https://www.cdc.gov/cdctv/healthyliving/hygiene/what-you-need-to-know-about-handwashing-transcript.html