WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci is waiting for COVID-19 to be “essentially crushed” before returning to his longtime work studying infectious diseases at the National Institutes of Health, he said in an interview with McClatchy on Friday.
“It ain’t over till it’s over,” Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, said. “I’m not going to be taking my attention off COVID-19 until we have it essentially crushed – namely, we’re not worried about it at all as a public health threat. When that happens, I will go back and refocus my attention on HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and all the other things my institute does.”
Fauci, who is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, “I believe, with all due modesty, we’ve done incredible things with regard to HIV, with regard to flu and now with regard to COVID-19 by being the main movers in the development of a vaccine.”
