Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared at his last scheduled White House press briefing before retiring at the end of the year and reflected on his more than 50-year career in public health. “What I want people to remember about what I’ve done is that I gave it my all every day for all these years.”
Video Transcription
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE: As you all know, Dr. Fauci is retiring next month. And I’m honored – so honored – that he’s with me for the last time today, one more time on stage.
– What was the most difficult moment of the pandemic response for you?
ANTHONY FAUCI: So that’s a really hard question to answer about the hardest one, because we’ve all lived through almost three years of the most horrific outbreak that we’ve seen as a society in over 100 years. But there are certain things that stand out. I mean, I could probably write an essay about all things that were a tough time.
But one of the things, as a physician whose purpose in life is to care for patients and prevent and treat disease and relieve suffering, is that I remember from my time in medical school, when I was an intern and a physician assistant, when a patient came in – whether the patient didn’t like you or not, was mad at you, whether it was a rich person or a poor person – you treated everyone the same because you cared about them and you wanted everyone the same did go out healthy.
So when I see people in this country, because of the division in our country by not being vaccinated – for reasons that have nothing to do with public health, but divisions and ideological differences – as a doctor, it hurts me, because I don’t want anyone to get infected. I don’t want anyone hospitalized. And I don’t want to see anyone die from COVID. Whether you are a far-right Republican or a far-left Democrat makes no difference to me. I look at it the same way I did in the emergency room in the middle of New York City, when I took care of everyone who came off the street. So that’s what worries me the most about this.
– You became a household name largely because of your performances here in the early stages of COVID. What do you want Americans to remember about your government service?
ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, I think what I’ve accomplished in my 54 years at the NIH and my 38 years as director of NIAID, while COVID is really, really important, it’s a fragment of the total 40 years I’ve been doing it. So I let other people judge the value of my achievements or not.
But what I want people to remember about what I’ve done is that I’ve given everything I’ve got every day all these years and I’ve never left anything on the field. So if they’ll remember me, whether they judge right or wrong what I’ve done, I gave it all I had for decades.
