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Hello, my name is Jeremy Farrow.

I'm the director of the Welcome Trust.

This is the podcast of my special guest edition of the Today program,

a program that's going to focus on uncertainty

and bringing clarity to bear in complex times.

I wanted to focus on uncertainty, uncertainty in all our lives,

uncertainty in the context of COVID, but also uncertainty as a bringer and something we can

build on to embrace and to make real progress from. One man will probably always be associated with the global struggle to understand and

control many infectious diseases, including COVID, Dr Tony Fauci from the National Institutes

of Health in the United States, the man who at times struggled to keep President Donald

Trump and his administration focused on tackling the pandemic.

I've known Tony since we worked together actually on SARS-1 and bird flu in 2003, 2004, when I was living in Vietnam.

I wanted to talk to him about the links between science and politics,

how to bring the benefits of science into the political

debate in what is often a very, very polarized world. And I started by asking Dr. Fauci, who has

served under six presidents, to reflect on how science and politics have mixed in 2020.

When you have an optimal situation where both elements of what might be a bipartisan situation,

like we have in the United States with two major parties, when there is good cooperation

and lack of divisiveness attacking and addressing a public

health problem as serious as COVID-19 is something that runs relatively smoothly. Unfortunately,

this year, I think it's no secret to anyone following what's going on, that

...