Fauci: ‘Can’t Understand Why There’s Pushback’ Against Coronavirus Measures — ‘They Save Lives’

Tuesday on “CNN Newsroom,”  National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci continued pleading the public to wear masks and follow the health measures taken to help mitigate the spread of the coronavirus.

After stressing that masks “work,” Fauci said he “can’t understand why there’s pushback” against the health orders. He argued the measures are important because “they save lives.”

“[W]e need to intensify common, easy to do, relatively speaking, public health measures that are not shutting down the country, not shutting down the economy,” Fauci advised. “The uniform wearing of masks, let’s get it straight, they work. Use them. The next is avoiding congregate settings, particularly indoor, keeping distance that we talk about — to the extent possible doing things outdoors preferentially to indoors and washing your hands frequently. We have to get that point across.”

“I’ve often said help is on the way, but help is not here yet,” he added. “So, one of the things we need to do is to use the success of the vaccines to get people to be motivated to hang in there a bit longer and double down on the public health measures without necessarily shutting down the country. You can continue to do activities which are good for the economy but still adhering to the public health measures that we’re talking about. I just can’t understand why there’s pushback against that. They’re not that difficult to do. And they save lives, Jim. They save lives.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent