COVID-19: Fauci says he was worried about getting coronavirus at White House

America’s top infectious disease expert and chief medical and coronavirus adviser to Joe Biden, Anthony Fauci, on Monday, February 15 revealed that he was nervous entering the White House late in Donald Trump’s presidency. During an interview with Axios, he said that he was at high risk of suffering a “serious outcome” if he became infected by the virus. He further added that he did not fixate on that but it would always be on the back of his mind.

'A little bit nervous'

“Particularly when I was going to the White House every day, when the White House was sort of a super-spreader location. I mean, that made me a little bit nervous”, said Fauci. Former US President Donald Trump and Former First Lady Melania Trump tested positive in the month of October when one of the President's close aides got infected with the virus. After this, at least 7 people tested positive, including. his former counsellor, Kellyanne Conway, and two Republican senators, Thom Tillis and Mike Lee.

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“The president takes the health and safety of himself and everyone who works in support of him and the American people very seriously,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.  “White House Operations collaborates with the physician to the president and the White House Military Office to ensure all plans and procedures incorporate current CDC guidelines and best practices for limiting COVID-19 exposure to the greatest extent possible, both on complex and when the president is travelling”.

Read: WHO Team Discovers Signs Of Wider COVID Outbreak In Wuhan In December 2019, Says Reports

Notably, Trump has consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. “I felt no vulnerability whatsoever,” he told reporters back in May. The COVID-19 pandemic which saw its first outbreak in a wet market in Wuhan, China last year has now spread all across the world. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected 109,677,179 people worldwide with the global death toll at 2,418,815. As per the John Hopkins coronavirus resource centre, the United States has reported a total of at least 28,317,703 positive virus cases and has a death toll of 498,203.The US currently has the highest number of reported cases in the world, making it the epicentre of the deadly virus.

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(Image Credits: AP)