'Our society is totally nuts': Fauci's emails reveal chaos during COVID-19 pandemic

After over a year of the world battling the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, US top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails during the coronavirus storm has uncovered chaos, confusion among the administration especially during the early stages. While the pandemic hit the United States under the former US President Donald Trump administration who was criticised for downplaying the severity of the disease, thousands of pages of Fauci’s communication records obtained by the Washington Post and Buzzfeed news website gave a rare insight into the pressure that was mounted on the top medical expert of the country.

Offering a window into the chaos, panic and confusion during the pandemic, in one of the emails by Fauci he speaks of the “crazy people in this world” whom he appeared to blame for making the crisis political. Several other excerpts detailed his tiff with White House officials including an exchange with aid to former US vice president Mike Pence Marc Shot. Even though the context is unclear, Short wrote in one of the emails, “You correctly noticed the symptoms but misdiagnosed the root cause.” To this, Fauci replied, “Thanks for the note. Understood.”

While most of the email exchanges were strictly formal, one of them showed a link to an article titled “Cuomo Crush and and ‘Fauci Fever – Sexualization of These Men Is a Real Thing on the Internet’ that talks about the phenomenon of developing a crush on the US leaders and experts that appeared on the screens. Replying with brief humour to the exchange dated April 7, 2020, Fauci writes, “It will blow your mind...Our society is really totally nuts.”

There are some exchanges with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg regarding the creation of a coronavirus information hub on social media, actor Morgan Freeman who offered to post COVID-19 messaging to his 100,000 Twitter followers at the time. Other wealthy or influential correspondents include Microsoft founder, Bill Gates. In one of the emails dated April 3, 2020, Fauci refers to a conversation with Gates about a “collaborative and hopefully synergistic approach to Covid-19” with billionaire’s charitable foundation.

Fauci opens up about his struggles

Recently, Fauci even opened up about his struggle to cope up with the pressure and shortage of time during the preliminary stages of the pandemic. Even though it was challenging, the US top infectious disease expert said that he tried to accommodate everyone’s queries amid the COVID-19 wave. He told The Post, “I was getting every single kind of question, mostly people who were a little bit confused about the mixed messages that were coming out of the White House and wanted to know what’s the real scoop.”

“I have a reputation that I respond to people when they ask for help, even if it takes a long time. And it’s very time consuming, but I do,” he added.

IMAGE: AP/Pixabay