National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Dr. Anthony Fauci said Monday on MSNBC’s “ReidOut” that the harsh criticism he received was “inexplicable” because our common enemy is the COVID-19 virus.
Anchor Joy Reid said, “The thing that we’re seeing is exhaustion among people who are in the health care industry. People who have to provide care for people who are hostile to the idea that they are saying mask up and get vaccinated, but then run to the ER and want the same science and medicine to save them when they get sick. How do you process this? As someone who has been an epidemiologist, people literally saying I hate you for saying put a mask on or get a vaccine, but please save me when I get COVID.”
Fauci said, “It’s difficult to process that. I am the object of that every single day, literally every single day. It seems inexplicable that we’re dealing with what is so, obviously, a public health global health crisis that has killed over 615,000 Americans and worldwide over 4 million people. We have such divisiveness in society that we concentrate on this divisiveness and hostility to the very people who are devoting their entire lives, you know, working 24/7, the health care providers, the nurses, the doctors, and even the scientists who are trying to do a job of getting the vaccines and getting the therapies. It just doesn’t make any sense. But it is certainly a reflection in the terrible divisiveness that we have in our society.”
“I wish maybe what we are going through now, which is such a painful experience, that people will realize that the common enemy is the virus, not each other,” he added. “We are in this together. The only way we are gonna conquer this virus is by working together. So I don’t have a good answer to your question. It’s just an unfortunate reality that we have to deal with.”
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