Fauci Notes COVID-19 Outcome Disparities, Recalls AIDS Crisis
It's hardly news that health disparities exist in America and they run along socio-economic lines. Those disparities also run along racial lines and, as LGBTQ people know, they all too often involved bias and discrimination against non-heterosexual and non-cisgender people.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a longtime advocate of fact-based health care who has guided the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 36 years, took note of those disparities in comments he delivered during an April 7 press conference at the White House, reports the New York Post.
Fauci noted that "the greater proportion of my professional career has been defined by HIV/AIDS," and - as infamously anti-LGBTQ Vice President Mike Pence looked on - went on to add, "And if you go back then during that period of time when there was an extraordinary stigma, particularly against the gay community.
Fauci recalled how the LGBTQ community rallied together for mutual support and pushed back against government indifference, saying that "it was only when the world realized how the gay community responded to this outbreak with incredible courage and dignity and strength and activism — I think that really changed some of the stigma against the gay community. Very much so."
Such health disparities have not entirely disappeared for sexual minorities, and indeed not all of "the world" has responded to the efforts of non-heterosexuals to win full legal and social equality with plaudits; if anything, the current administration has proven itself a relentless foe of LGBTQ equality.
But Fauci had another point to make. He went on to draw a parallel between the disparities that affected the gay community in the 1980s and the way that African Americans are now suffering disproportionately from COVID-19.
Said Fauci:
"Here again with the crisis, how it's shining a bright light on how unacceptable that is because, yet again, when you have a situation like the coronavirus, they are suffering disproportionately.
"As [fellow coronavirus task force] Dr. [Deborah] Birx said correctly, it's not that they are getting infected more often, it's that when they do get infected, their underlying medical conditions — the diabetes, hypertension, the obesity, the asthma — those are the kind of things that wind them up in the ICU and ultimately give him a higher death rate."
Fauci has been praised for his ability to stick to medical facts with regard to the virus while also - thus far - not drawing the sort of wrath from President Trump that others have suffered.
Trump himself has come in for criticism lately given revelations that he ignored intelligence warnings about the impending pandemic as early as January. The president also minimized the dangers and the severity of the illness, claiming at various times that COVID-19 is no worse than the typical flu and saying that the situation in the United States was well in hand, with very few cases.
That is, until the situation spiraled into a crisis that could no longer be ignored and required extraordinary measures to contain. Efforts to combat the spread of the highly infectious disease were late in starting and have been unevenly applied across the fifty states. Even so, those measures - which include social distancing and self-quarantine on a massive scale - have struck a sudden and crippling blow to the economy, devastating the job situation for millions of working Americans, and making a deep recession a near-certainty,
The president had dissolved a National Security Council "pandemic response team" in 2018 - another reason for criticism directed at him. Fauci recently said during a committee hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives that, "It would be nice if the office was still there."
Fauci's staunch insistence on facts have led to speculation that he may soon not be longed for his job, and indeed the president has gone on another purge in recent days, firing or sidelining several inspectors general, including acting Inspector General of the Department of Defense Glenn Fine, who was to have handled the disbursement of more than $2 trillion in funds approved by Congress to help pull the American economy back from disaster and provide relief to small businesses and ordinary citizens.
Also axed by Trump: Michael Atkinson, the inspector general who, in following the law and reporting a whistleblower complaint to Congress that sparked Trump's impeachment, drew Trump's ire.
Time Magazine reported that, "The President's moves to push out and belittle the inspectors, made as Washington prepares to shovel out the door trillions of dollars in aid to Americans and businesses, have raised concerns Trump is trying to place loyalists in key oversight positions and dismantle the post-Watergate reforms designed to prevent executive overreach."
Already, anti-Fauci partisans have appeared online, targeting Fauci for covering his face as he sat next to Trump during statements the president made about the State Department being a "deep state" department. Fauci has now been assigned extra security as a measure to protect him - though that won't help if Trump decides to go after him next.