By Ted Johnson<\/p>\n
Anthony Fauci<\/a>\u00a0may have been sidelined from TV interviews but he\u2019s still doing online conversations along with print pieces, such as an online cover story for\u00a0InStyle.<\/em><\/p>\n On Thursday, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has become the star expert during the\u00a0coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0pandemic, spoke to\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0CEO\u00a0Mark Zuckerberg<\/a>\u00a0for a livestream interview that lasted nearly an hour.<\/p>\n It was Zuckerberg, though, who criticized the government\u2019s response to the coronavirus crisis, as he referred to efforts by some in the Trump administration to undermine scientific guidance and Fauci himself.<\/p>\n \u201cYou might be quite generous in your description of the government\u2019s response here. I was certainly sympathetic early on when it was clear that there would be some outbreaks, no matter how well we handle this,\u201d Zuckerberg told Fauci. \u201cNow that we are here in July, I just think that it was avoidable and it is really disappointing that we still don\u2019t have adequate testing, that the credibility of top scientists like yourself and the CDC are being undermined. Until recently, parts of the administration were calling into question whether people should follow basic best practices like wearing masks.\u201d<\/p>\n Zuckerberg has received criticism that the Facebook platforms have not taken greater steps to control misinformation on the Facebook platforms, particularly when it comes to some of the president\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n In his interview with Zuckerberg, Fauci warned of the rising number of cases in southern states but otherwise did not criticize Trump and his team.<\/p>\n But he took issue with the notion that controlling the spread of the virus came at the expense of reopening the economy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe should be looking at public health measures as a vehicle, or a gateway, to opening the country, not as the\u00a0obstacle\u00a0in the way, but as the gateway,\u201d he told Zuckerberg.<\/p>\n He suggested that states that have seen dramatic increases in cases, including Florida and Arizona, didn\u2019t follow the suggested recommendations to safely reopen.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have got to do it correctly,\u201d Fauci said. \u201cYou can\u2019t jump over steps, which is very perilous when you think about rebound. The proof of the pudding is, look what has happened. There really is no reason that we are having 40, 50, 60 thousand, other than we are not doing something correctly.\u201d<\/p>\n Fauci also said that his early advice not to wear masks was motivated by a concern over adequate supplies for medical professionals. He said that earlier this year, it also was not clear that there were asymptomatic people who could spread the virus. Now that it has been recommended, there has been pushback on private and public sector mandates to wearing them.<\/p>\n Fauci also tried to refute the notion that wearing masks could be harmful to health. The good news from the interview was Fauci\u2019s optimism over a vaccine. He said that \u201cwe should know, as we get to mid to late fall, whether we have [vaccine] candidates that are safe and effective.\u201d<\/p>\n This week, Trump\u2019s trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote an op ed for USA Today attacking Fauci\u2019s credibility, while another adviser, Dan Scavino, posted a cartoon on Twitter mocking him.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cThere has not been any indication that putting a mask on, and wearing a mask for a considerable period of time, has any deleterious effects on oxygen exchange and things like that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n