Science Vs - Fauci on How This Ends

Episode Date: December 4, 2021

Dr. Anthony Fauci sits down with us to talk about omicron, how this pandemic actually ends — and how he’s fighting back against the haters.  Find our transcript here: https://bit.ly/3Djq9jX Science Vs is produced by Wendy Zukerman, Rose Rimler, Meryl Horn, Michelle Dang, and Ekedi Fausther-Keeys. We’re edited by Blythe Terrell. Mix and sound design by Daniel Ramirez. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Rana El-Khelyoubi, an AI scientist, entrepreneur, investor, and now host of the new podcast, Pioneers of AI. Think of it as your guide for all things AI, with the most human issues at the center. Join me every Wednesday for Pioneers of AI. And don't forget to subscribe wherever you tune in. Okay, Anthony Fauci has entered the waiting room. Hey, Wendy here. You're listening to Science Versus from Gimlet. Today, we got to catch up with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

We talked about Omicron, how this pandemic might end, and how Fauci is fighting back against the haters. Let's jump in. Hi, Wendy. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? Have you managed to get in your power walk today? No, no. I think I'm going to have to do that tonight. Sometimes very late. Good to squeeze it in.

Tell us, it's been a big week. Was Omicron a bit of an oh, crap moment for you? Yeah, you know, 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. 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. You don't think we're there yet with Omicron? 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 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. Based on what we're seeing right now, is Omicron moving faster than Delta did? 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 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 kinetics of the increase in South Africa, 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. Nice pun. You know, we'll get it sorted out, but we're not going to get it sorted out by the weekend. You know, it's going to take probably a few weeks to really understand what's going on.

So let's talk about the travel bans. So the US brought in travel bans against eight countries in Southern Africa, you know, to buy time and try to slow this thing down for the US. But there are other countries like the Netherlands and Norway where we're seeing local transmission of Omicron, but there haven't been any travel bans there. Is that good science? Like, what's going on? 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 was 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 case in Belgium, which was probably 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. 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. 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. Right. I'll crucify you no matter what. No, of course not. So then on this point, 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 crucifying and 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? No, you know, Wendy, theoretically, you're correct in your concept, but practically, that's not the case. Let me tell you what the facts are. Please.

And they will speak for themselves. So the United States has sent about 295 million doses to 110 countries, something like 90 million of which are in Africa. We have given or pledged 1.1 billion doses for low and middle income countries. 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. 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. And then, so that's another movie you've been to before here in the US, the anti-vax movie. So tell me, with vaccine hesitancy here in the US, I mean, I personally am tired and feeling very hopeless with many Americans and Australians 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. Where is your optimism coming from at this point? Well, I am both a cautious optimist and a realist at the same time. If that isn't an oxymoron, 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 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 and use another channel to show what an individual you are. Maybe buy a fun, you know, jersey or something. Vaccines are highly effective and safe. We know that boosters elevate the degree of protection multi, multi, multifold more than the two-dose Moderna, Pfizer, or the one-dose J&J. 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, I mean, what's, what's gone 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. Did you know that America was full of jabronis?

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 not a politician, and I have no political affiliations at all. And I can 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. And the world. And the world, right. And the world. 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. You've told Republican Senator Rand Paul, you don't know what you're talking about, quite frankly. I love the quite frankly, it's very polite. You know, is this your is this your inner Brooklyn coming out? 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 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 Joseph Mengele. I mean, of course, I'm not going to stand by and let her say that. So. Despite all of this, and you said you want to stay in this role until the pandemic is over or in the rearview mirror. What does that look like to you? 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 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. And so then it starts to look a little more like a good year of the flu. Is that kind of your thinking? Yeah, just, you know, 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 interventions and the countermeasures that we have. 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? Well, I'm often not near a faucet, but I have this. So I do 10 or 20 seconds with this, but I generally do at least 20 seconds when I wash my hands. All right. Thank you so much for your time. My pleasure. Good to be with you. That was Dr Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as well as the chief medical advisor to the US president. And by the way, a very quick fact check.

Turns out Senator Rand Paul blamed Dr Anthony Fauci for the deaths of a mere four million people, not five. If you would like to know more about Omicron and boosters, yesterday at Science Versus we 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 Versus. Mix and Sound Design by Daniel Ramirez. Find our full credits in

the show notes. I'm Wendy Zuckerman. Back to you next time.