Time - USA (2020-05-11)

56 TIME May 11, 2020

6 Questions

‘

THIS VIRUS IS SO

TRANSMISSIBLE,

IT’S NOT GOING

TO DISAPPEAR

’

better as the weeks go by, but we are not

in a situation where we say we are exactly

where we want to be with regard to testing.

What is herd immunity, and what role

does it play in controlling COVID-19

long-term? There are two ways you get

herd immunity. You get enough people in-

fected who are then ultimately immune and

thus protected [against infection]. And/or

you get a vaccine that induces immunity.

The perfect form of herd immunity is a vac-

cine that is 97% eff ective. But sometimes

you need a combination of... people who

have been infected together with a vaccine.

Right now, since we don’t have a vaccine

and likely will not have one for months to

a year... and we don’t know for sure how

many individuals have been infected and

are asymptomatic —herd immunity doesn’t

work under those circumstances. This virus

is so transmissible, it’s not going to disap-

pear. It’s going to be there until we can sup-

press it.

What did you make of President Trump

tweeting #FireFauci? I meet with the

President literally every day. There was no

way he was going to do that, because he

had no intention to do that. A lot of people

use me as a symbol for shutting down the

economy. It’s understandable but not really

real. I just give public-health advice. My job

always is—and I’ve always done it,

and will continue to do it—to give

advice on the basis of evidence

and science.

You treasure your daily

runs. Are you able to con-

tinue with your tradition?

Well, on the weekends, yes. I

used to do it every day. Now,

if I do squeeze it in, it’s at

night. And I stay 6 ft. apart

from everybody else.

—ALICE PARK

Adapted from a TIME 100

Talk. Watch the full interview

with Fauci at time.com/

fauci-interview

P

resident Trump outlined his

three-phase plan to reopen busi-

nesses and society. From a public-

health and scientifi c perspective, is it

the right time to talk about reopening

the country? We have to realize that we

are a large country that has outbreaks in

diff erent regions in diff erent states and dif-

ferent cities that have diff erent dynamics

and [are in] diff erent phases. Sometimes,

and understandably, people might think

when you get back to normal, it’s like a

light switch that you turn on or off. It isn’t

really that at all. When we talk about “Is it

the right time?”—it’s only the right time

for those areas of the country that have

already shown consistently [that they are]

going down in the number of new cases of

COVID-19.

The fact that we are locked down is

almost a strategy of last resort. How did

we fi nd ourselves in a position of hiding

from the virus instead of confronting

it? We had an unprecedented situation of

[this virus]... spreading throughout the

world in literally weeks to months, and

then the unfortunate situation of having

an unprecedented degree of transmissible

effi ciency and high degree of morbidity and

mortality. There was no preparation back

then [several months ago] that would have

anticipated this... [so we] are not as well

prepared as [we] would have liked to be.

Testing is critical as we talk about

reopening the country. How confi -

dent are you that testing capabil-

ity is up and running and ready

for that? Right now I think there

are still some gaps there. We ab-

solutely need to signifi cantly

ramp up not only the number of

tests but the capacity to actu-

ally perform them. So that you

don’t have a situation where

you have the test but it can’t be

done because you don’t have

a swab, or extraction media, or

the right vial. I am not overly confi -

dent right now at all that we have what it

takes to do that. We are getting better and

Dr. Anthony Fauci The top U.S. infectious-disease

expert on social distancing, COVID-19 testing and

being the fall guy for the stalled economy

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