America's lead expert on infectious diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci reportedly 'cancels' Christmas in a video, reports say.
According to The Post Millennial, Fauci "tries to cancel Christmas for all Americans" for reiterating what former Vice President Joseph Biden said in his message last Monday, Dec. 14. Fauci is said to be "tapped" by Biden to be the "chief medical advisor" for "his administration".
The Post Millennial was actually referring to a video wherein Fauci was interviewed by the Washington Post regarding his plans for Christmas, the eve of which happens to be his 80th birthday.
In the said video, Fauci cited the status of COVID-19 in the country and what could be done to avoid the further increase of its cases.
"Look at the numbers--the numbers are really quite dramatic," Fauci said referring to the number of cases of COVID-19 in the country, which he referred to as "a big problem".
As per World Health Organization Data Table Dashboard, the United States continues to top reported cases globally for the pandemic at 16.4M cumulative total cases with 301,536 cumulative deaths as of Dec. 17, 2020, 5:05 p.m. There were 201,468 newly reported cases and 2,942 newly reported deaths on Wednesday alone. Community transmission has been identified as the number one cause of transmission in the country.
"This cannot be business as usual this Christmas because we're already in a very difficult situation, and we're going to make it worse, if we don't do something about it," Fauci stressed in his Washington Post interview.
"Stay at home as much as you can, keep your interactions to the extent possible to members of the same household," he advised.
His statements to the Washington Post actually echo his sentiments for a unified approach to addressing the pandemic during a keynote address he has given to the American Society for Microbiology last August 17, 2020.
"If we're going to get through this, we've got to all pull together as a country," he said in his key address, "The only way to get back to baseline is for everybody to pull together. Sharp divisions in the country, make that very difficult."
The Huffpost, on the other hand, reported that Fauci cited the little sacrifice his family will be doing for Christmas and encouraged others to do the same in the hope of curtailing the further spread of the virus in the country. He said he and his wife will just be staying home and his children won't be coming over even though it is "painful." He highlighted that this is just one of "the things you're going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time."
Named by Time magazine as 2020 guardian of the year, Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The Conversation claims that he "has been the face of the fight against COVID-19 in the US" for his "blunt, evidence-based approach" that hopefully will "lead the way to controlling COVID-19 in 2021" in the country.
In his message Monday, The Post Millennial quoted Biden in saying that he will be enforcing strict guidelines to curtail COVID-19 in America such as the wearing of masks when he becomes the president, which is in total contradiction to what President Donald Trump has been doing the past months.
