Anthony Fauci, Already 79 years old, he went from being an obscure public health Dr Toe, a worldwide celebrity.

In just a few weeks, as the US and the world searched desperately for a reliable guide to the unfolding pandemic, one name came to the fore.

Dr.

Anthony Fauci, Dr Anthony Fauci, Dr Anthony Fauci.

Dr.

Fauci was often put in a difficult position, either back some of the president's less than scientific pronouncements or criticized when the president was pressing to reopen the country.

Doctor Fauci struck a more cautious note.

There is a really risk that you will trigger an outbreak.

You may not be able to control Dr Anthony Fauci to throw out the first pitch.

What irked some Republicans is that Dr Fauci seemed to enjoy his fame, although he clearly had no future in baseball.

Any in Congress thought his accuracy early in the pandemic.

There be no better than his pitching arm.

Hey loves being on television.

We let him do it Sometimes, he says, things that are a little bit off and they get built up, unfortunately, But he's a nice guy.

I like him, but he's called a lot of it calls, he said.

Don't wear a mask.

President was referring to this interview from March.

Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.

So Dr Fauci had Saturday on the White House, pointed out.

Other times at the start of the pandemic, when Dr Fauci had apparently made the wrong call in late February, he was advising against a lock down.

No, right now, at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you're doing on a day by day basis.

But by mid April, he seemed to suggest he'd wanted a lock down in February but had encountered resistance.

If we had right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different, but there was, ah lot of pushback about shutting things down back then, According to polling, trust in Dr Fauci was very high and broadly similar between Republicans and Democrats.

In April of this year, 80% of Democrats on 77% of Republicans told pollsters that they had a great deal or a fair amount of trust in Dr Fauci.

But by September, a huge chasm had emerged between the two groups, while Democrat Trust had increased to 86% Republican Trust and slipped back to just 48%.

Fauci is too useful to the Biden campaign.

So until November, Fauci's word must be law, even when it doesn't make sense.

But one of the final Trump election rallies.

The crowd made their feelings clear.

Don't tell anybody, but let me wait till a little bit.

After the election today, America began rolling out the fighter vaccine, the first to get it.

Where health workers, however, trust in the vaccine is far from universal.

Part of the problem is that many Americans no longer trust the advice of public health officials like Dr Fauci, David Grossman reporting there well.

Earlier, we spoke to Dr Anthony Fauci, and I began by asking him whether the daily death toll of 3000 Americans every day from Corona virus, which now eclipses the death toll seen in the first wave, is the peak off this crisis.

Well, I hope it does not go any more than that.

We've really been hit very, very hard.

A Siris of circumstances took an already difficult situation and made it worse, namely, the onset of the colder weather where people are doing things indoors more than outdoors.

Number one number two, our Thanksgiving holiday, where people traveled and congregated, family settings of, you know, large dinners and social gatherings.

And now we're entering into the Christmas Hanukkah Christmas season, which I'm quite concerned that the spike that we saw and that we're continuing to see might even amplify and get worse as we go into the Christmas holiday.

So I think the month of the rest of December and into January going to be very, very difficult months for us.

Can I ask you, you've mentioned Thanksgiving?

Of course.

It's a huge thing in the US, but not here.

What lessons would you say that gives for Christmas with people in the UK and other parts of of Europe?

Looking forward to that time is a family time.

What would your advice be?

Yeah, my advice would be something that I think is going to sadden people because everyone wants the family warmth and get together.

That is so characteristic of the Christmas season.

But my recommendation would be to curtail traveling as much as you possibly can, visiting people, even though it's such a important part of the Christmas spirit.

Keep the gatherings, the dinners and the indoor gatherings to as few people as possible, preferably for people that are an integral part of the household and avoid the kind of congregate settings that have been so characteristic.

I know that's so difficult to accept back, except because people already have what we call Covic fatigue.

They're just tired of not leading a normal life.

And when you're telling them in the Christmas holidays, which traditionally is the time of gathering together in the warmth of a family and friends atmosphere, we're saying to the best of your possibility, Don't do that.

I know that's tough, but I believe that's the only way we're gonna prevent uneven greatest surge.

Then we're already seen.

It's a cancel Christmas message in a facto opponent.

Yeah, in some respects, it is unfortunately when you look back, I know even quite early on you said that there were mitigations that could have been put in place sooner.

I'm thinking of the springtime February, March, April.

What is it that you most regret about how the U.

S.

Went into this crisis?

If you could change one thing.

What would it be?

You know, it would be getting mawr of a uniformity of response.

If you look at the various slopes that the United States experienced by slope, I mean the inflection of cases going up.

We got hit very badly in the very early spring, mostly in the New York metropolitan area, in the northeastern corridor, when that was able to get under control and go down.

Then we stayed at a baseline.

That was really very not not acceptable at all.

We had about 20,000 new cases a day.

It never went below that.

And then when we tried a so called open the country are open the economy towards the early summer, what we had was a splurge of cases that were associated with states not adhering to the recommended, cautious, prudent way of how you opened the economy.

How big a factor was the president's behavior in the spreading of this for us?

You know, I think that, you know, rather than concentrate on the president's behavior, it looks at what the result was that we in the United States have 50 states.

It's a federalist society.

That independence of states is in many respects a good thing, except when you have a common problem.

In recent weeks, you've had a president who seemed more interested in playing golf than than than giving strong public messages on this.

Well, you know, I cannot comment on that.

I'm just trying, you know how difficult that is that we're really in a very difficult situation.

We have a lot of divisiveness here in the United States.

We have some sections of the country who, despite the fact that there are hospitals that are on the verge of being overrun with cases and the need for MAWR healthcare providers who are trained firm or intensive care beds who still believe that this isn't really that it's a hoax, that it's not really something serious.

It's astounding to me as a position the scientists and healthcare provider to see that even in the places that are the hardest hit, they don't seem to appreciate and look at the data that staring them right in the face that we're going through a very difficult period right now.

Do you think America's ability to recognize that and to unite around public health messages has declined during that long?

period that 36 years you've had in that post.

Yeah.

You know what happens?

Uh, public health outbreaks.

Um, pandemics are difficult enough under the best of circumstances, when you have profound divisiveness in society where you have a public health response that in some respects becomes politicized, we're wearing a mask or not becomes a political statement.

We're avoiding crowds or not becomes a political statement.

It makes it extremely difficult to get one's control of what, in and of itself, even under the best of circumstances would be a challenging outbreak.

So in the 36 years that I have been the director of the Infectious Disease Institute and have been involved and outbreaks ranging from HIV to Zika to Ebola to pandemic flu, this has been the most difficult from the standpoint of the seriousness and the enormity of it under such a truncated period of time, but also trying to get a coordinated response.

It just is very, very difficult.

Now he President elect Biden is promising focus.

He's rolled out of policy mask wearing for the 1st 100 days.

Do you think he's going to make a real difference?

I hope so.

I mean, it's important that we go in the right direction and this.

I think the vaccine is going to be a very important component of that.

I think you have to give credit to the current administration with Operation Warp speed to be able to come through this with a vaccine that is highly application.

So you've got to give credit where credit is due.

I believe with the vaccine and good public health measures that a uniformly adhere to.

I believe that we will go in the right direction.

We've been hearing this afternoon from our own health secretary about a new variant off the coronavirus.

We're not quite sure whether he's referring to 614 g or one of the other mutations that have been discussed in the scientific literature.

But are you confident that vaccines like fires of beyond tech or AstraZeneca will be efficacious against these mutations we're now seeing?

Uh, I mean, obviously one could never be overconfident.

But I feel from my experience with viruses over the years that when you see mutations in an R n a virus, whether or not it modifies the function very frequently, it has nothing to do with the efficacy of the vaccine.

For example, the 614 d D G mutation is one that, in fact, when you look at the binding site of the antibodies that are made from the vaccine, it doesn't look at all like it's going to negatively impact the efficacy of the vaccine.

If another the mutation comes along, we'll see what happens with it.

But thus far, we've not had any serious challenge to the advocacy of a vaccine based on mutations that occur in an already virus.

Lastly, you made some comment before about the UK moving ahead with licensing of off the fires of beyond tech vaccine, which you then withdrew and you corrected those remarks.

But I just wanted to ask you about the AstraZeneca virus, the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, a bigger pardon, which the UK hopes to put through before the end of the year and give regulatory approval to what's the U.

S.

Position on that?

Have you have you got a good sense that it is ready to be rolled out as well?

Well, we have a face retrial with the A Z product right here in the United States that is accruing very well, and we will get an answer based on a full dose prime, followed by a full dose boost.

You know, the situation of the UK?

They started off with a half dose, followed by a full dose.

And then when they did the comparisons, they had an unusual finding which still is not explainable.

Why half those followed by a full dose, you know, gave a better response than a full dose, followed by a full dose.

So I think I'm just gonna hold back on any judgment on that until we get the full faith retrial that's done here in the United States on the same product Dr.

Anthony found she Thank you so much for joining us on Newsnight.

My pleasure.

Good to be with you.