Key Words: ‘We’re in for a whole lot of hurt,’ Fauci says, warning U.S. needs ‘abrupt change’ to avoid winter coronavirus disaster

Fauci, America’s foremost infectious-disease expert and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, strongly disagreed with President Donald Trump’s claims that the U.S. is “rounding the turn” on COVID-19, telling the Post: “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”

Fauci added that the U.S. needs to make an “abrupt change” in public health practices and behaviors as the holiday season approaches, and praised Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign for “taking it seriously from a public health perspective,” rather than Trump’s focus of reopening the country.

In an interview Sunday with CBS News, former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb echoed Fauci’s warnings, saying “things are getting worse” and warning that Thanksgiving could be an “inflection point” for a coronavirus surge over the winter.

In the Post interview, Fauci also again expressed his disapproval of fellow White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist with no previous experience in infectious diseases who has had Trump’s ear in recent months, and who has been sharply criticized by many public health experts for spreading misinformation.

“I have real problems with that guy,” Fauci told the Post. “He’s a smart guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.”

Late Saturday, the White House fired back at Fauci.

“It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the president’s coronavirus task force and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Judd Deere, the White House deputy press secretary, said in a statement, claiming that Fauci “has no confidence in the American people to make the best choice for themselves armed with CDC best practices.”

The relationship between Fauci and Trump has appeared to be strained for many months. Trump has repeatedly criticized Fauci at campaign events, calling him “a disaster.”

New coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths and have spiked in recent weeks, with a record 98,000 new cases confirmed Friday.

As of Sunday, the U.S. has had nearly 9.2 million coronavirus cases, with more than 230,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.