Dr. Anthony Fauci claimed during his final briefing Tuesday that the “real danger” from COVID-19 would come from Americans who did not get vaccinated.
“The real danger is in the people who have not been vaccinated,” Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said. “If we’re going to see a problem this winter, it’s going to be among those people.”
Fauci announced he was retiring as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden on Aug. 22.
“The people who are most at risk are the unvaccinated,” Fauci said. “We have 68% of our population vaccinated. That means we have 32% of the population that is not.”
Fauci’s tenure as NIAID director was marred with criticism over decisions made during the COVID pandemic and his handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic during the Reagan administration, according to The New York Times.
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During the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic, Fauci reportedly pursued a vaccine instead of retroviral treatments, according to the Federalist.
Fauci also faced questions about the funding of so-called “gain of function” research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). Republicans on the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) issued a report in October claiming that the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic stemmed from a lab leak at the WIV.
“I don‘t think any of my colleagues imagined it, that we would see a three year saga of suffering and death and millions of Americans losing their lives,” Fauci said. “The thing that was most disturbing was something I referred to in an answer in one of the other questions, was the continuation of multiple variants evolving over time completely unlike something like the measles.”
Fauci’s net worth reportedly climbed by $5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, including $1.7 million in investment portfolio gains.
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