Anthony Fauci Then and Now, and the Writer-Director Radha Blank

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

Politics, Arts, News, Wnyc, Books, David, Storytelling, Society & Culture, Yorker, New, Remnick

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2020

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At the moment that Donald Trump was leaving Walter Reed Hospital, not yet recovered from a case of COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down with Michael Specter to discuss the coronavirus and its impact on America. For the President—and all of us counting on a vaccine to miraculously deliver us back to normalcy—Fauci offers a reality check. “Let’s say we have a vaccine and it’s seventy per cent effective. But only sixty per cent of the people [are likely to] get vaccinated. The vaccine will greatly help us, but it’s not going to eliminate mask-wearing, avoiding crowds, and things like that.” Plus, Vinson Cunningham talks with Radha Blank about her loosely autobiographical new film, which won her best director at Sundance.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:09.1	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Donald Trump's absolute disregard for scientific reality, whether it's the coronavirus or climate change, has been a signature of his presidency.
0:22.0	His open contempt for putting on a mask was a threat from the first to the countless Americans
0:26.9	who choose to emulate him. It endangered, in the end, the president's own life and the lives
0:33.2	of everyone around him. Last week, just as Trump was leaving Walter Reed Hospital after a stay of three days,
0:40.2	Dr. Anthony Fauci sat down for a conversation with the New Yorker's Michael Specter.
0:45.7	Fauci is the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
0:49.5	which is a branch of the NIH, and he's really the most public voice in this country for medical reason.
0:56.9	Michael is a longtime staff writer at the New Yorker covering medicine and the sciences. They spoke on
1:01.9	Monday. As we are speaking, the president of the United States is scheduled to leave the hospital
1:08.4	any minute. And he's going to go back to the White House. And I'm not
1:12.0	going to ask you to comment on his strange regimen of drugs or how he's feeling. I know you're not
1:16.9	his personal physician. And that's not your thing. But I do want to talk about public health.
1:22.1	Because this afternoon, he tweeted, COVID, no big thing. Don't be afraid of it. And, you know, 210,000 Americans have died and
1:30.7	seven million have been infected. Is it fair to say no big thing? Don't be afraid of it?
1:36.8	Yeah, well, you know, Michael, that's been one of the things that have been sort of a bone of
1:42.1	contention and communication of the seriousness of this. I mean, obviously,
1:49.2	it's a very unusual pathogen that can have virtually no effect in the sense of 40%, 45% of
1:57.7	people can be without symptoms. And then for those who have symptoms, the overwhelming
2:02.7	majority of them are mild. But there are a group of individuals who fall into a certain subset
2:11.0	or category, namely the elderly and those with underlying conditions at any age who can have a severe outcome.
2:19.7	So when you look at the now 210,000 people in the United States of America who've died,
	...

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