Fauci: Trump Coming at Coronavirus from a ‘Layperson’s Standpoint’ — I’m Coming from a ‘Scientific Standpoint’

Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr. Anthony Fauci said President Donald Trump was only a “layperson” who has hope for success with existing drugs being successful in treating coronavirus.

Fauci added he was “coming from it from a scientific standpoint.”

Host Margaret Brennan asked, “You are the leading infectious disease expert in the U.S. government. You said this week that you differed from the president in his assessment that a combination of two drugs, Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin, could have the outcome he described to the public possibly could. Who is the president listening to? And do you see a concern here that those drugs could become, you know, basically over-prescribed and there could be a shortage who impact people who have persistent medical issues like Lupus who need those?”

Fauci said, “There’s an issue here of where we’re coming from. The president has heard, as we all have heard, what I call anecdotal reports that certain drugs work. So what he was trying to do in the express was to hope that if they might work, Let’s try and push their usage. I, on the other side, have said I’m not disagreeing with the fact anecdotally they might work, but my job is to prove definitively from a scientific standpoint that they do work. So I was taking a purely medical-scientific standpoint, and the president was trying to bring hope to the people. I think there’s this issue of trying to separate the two of us. There isn’t fundamentally a difference there. He’s coming from it from a hope, layperson’s standpoint. I’m coming from it from a scientific standpoint.”

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