Dr. Anthony Fauci says Americans could do with a little less “independent spirit” until “next Christmas.”
The infectious disease who lamented the nation’s “independent spirit” leading up to Thanksgiving reiterated his point for an interview with The Washington Post.
“Independent spirit in the United States of people not wanting to comply with public health measures has certainly hurt us a bit,” he said for a Wednesday piece titled, “Power Up: Fauci urges Americans to have a merry little Christmas. Emphasis on little.”
Mr. Fauci, who won’t be spending the holidays or his birthday with his three adult daughters, urged citizens to follow his lead.
“Christmas Day is Christmas Day,” he said. “And they are not going to come home … That’s painful. We don’t like that. But that’s just one of the things you’re going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time.”
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director then noted the macabre statistic of 300,000 U.S. deaths attributed to the contagion to buttress his stance.
“This cannot be business as usual this Christmas because we’re already in a very difficult situation, and we’re going to make it worse, if we don’t do something about it,” he continued. “Maybe this is a time to just say [to people], ’This is an unusual situation, it’s not going to last forever, it is highly likely that with vaccines being distributed, that we will be back to normal by next Christmas.’”
Mr. Fauci added that it was “unusual” to see larges swathes of the country refuse to alter their behavior despite the data.
“There are people in various parts of the country who still believe that [the coronavirus] is a hoax, that it’s fake,” he said. “Even when in their own state the hospitals have been overrun with patients in the hospital beds and in the intensive care unit. That’s very unusual to see a situation like that but that is what is going on in this country.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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