Fauci no intention of leaving Trump, confirms no ties with Biden

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci, Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force leading expert, says he won’t quit his role in the middle of the White House’s response to the pandemic.
• The expert also denied reports he got in touch with president-elect Biden or its coronavirus transition team. 
• Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE candidate vaccines showed potential with an effective rate of 90%-95%.

Top U.S. infectious disease authority, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said during a Reuters interview that he had no communication with the COVID-19 transition camp of President-elect Joe Biden, adding that he finds no cause to leave Trump administration amidst the pandemic which continues to rise across the country.

During the interview on Thursday, a week before the Total Health Conference by Reuters, Fauci said that as a scientist, he’s only interested in public health matters, noting that he is apolitical.

When President Donald Trump started the White House Coronavirus Task Force in January, Fauci was amongst the key officials who served under the administration. He, however, has often found himself clashing with the president who frequently downplayed the crisis and prioritized reopening the economy.    

Fauci further stressed that it would be senseless to quit his role in the middle of the health crisis, adding that getting out of the outbreak is their focus.

The expert recommended to Biden the same response they are implementing now such as mask-wearing, hand washing, social distancing, and crowd avoiding. He further noted that principles over public health would not be altered regardless of the month or administration.

It was during President Ronald Reagan’s term when Fauci had become significant because of his response to the 1980s AIDS pandemic. In total, the expert has worked under six administrations.

His primary vocation is serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, working on therapeutics and vaccine development.

Pfizer Inc and German partner firm BioNTech SE said on Monday that their candidate COVID-19 vaccine was effective by over 90% effective, considerably higher than many experts had projected.

Another company that’s developing a parallel vaccine, Moderna Inc, with White House’s Operation Warp Speed program’s backing, is anticipated to announce outcomes from their vaccine trial around the following week.

Both the involved company’s vaccines utilize messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, the latest rapid system that makes use of synthetic genes to activate an immune response. Previous methods usually are based on idled or destroyed virus particle forms.

While Fauci commended Pfizer for the effectiveness rate of its vaccines, he also believed that Moderna would be the same, adding that both were developed on a similar platform.

When it comes to safety, Fauci said that mRNA technology showed promising signs, citing that neither the Pfizer tests with over 43,000 people as of date nor Moderna’s which includes 30,000, had to be halted due to safety concerns.

Fauci further predicted that the mRNA platform would be here for the long term, and despite the standard set by the Pfizer vaccine, there will be opportunities for more products, reserving that the efficiency will be slightly different.

Source: AOL