Published 12:20 IST, July 30th 2020
Anthony Fauci says Donald Trump’s signals on COVID-19 measures 'not helpful'
US top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said that the video shared by President Trump which made unproven claims about COVID-19 were “not helpful".
US top infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci said that the video shared by President Donald Trump which made unproven claims about COVID-19 were “not helpful”, as the death related to the virus crossed the sombre milestone of 150,000. Trump had shared a video on social media in which a group called America's Frontline Doctors advocated hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment and called masks and lockdowns not effective in combating the virus.
Facebook and Twitter removed the video from their social media platforms, flagging it as misinformation but it had already garnered millions of views. The video also accused Dr Fauci and Democrats from preventing the world from learning a coronavirus “cure” and “perpetuate COVID deaths to hurt Trump".
Dr Fauci denied misleading the public and told BBC that he has never understood the issue of tweeting and retweeting or gotten involved in. He said that it’s not helpful if people get signals about not wearing masks when the health authorities are trying to get people to universally wear masks.
The 79-year-old immunologist said that the importance of mask is very clearly understood by everyone including “those in the White House”. He also made it clear that every single randomised control study has shown that hydroxychloroquine, touted as a miracle drug by Trump, is not effective in the treatment of COVID-19.
At loggerheads with Trump
The United States remains the worst-hit country with regard to the number of confirmed coronavirus cases and deaths linked to the pandemic. It has reported over 4.4 million COVID-19 cases and 150,713 deaths so far, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre.
Dr Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, has been at loggerheads with Trump over his statements related to virus response. Recently, he called the White House effort to discredit him "bizarre" and urged an end to the divisiveness over the country's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying "let's stop this nonsense." Dr Fauci also revealed that he was no longer in frequent contact with Trump following his statement on the easing of restrictions.
(Image: AP)
Updated 12:19 IST, July 30th 2020