Fauci Returns to White House Spotlight, This Time Under the Biden Administration | National News

Leading infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci on Thursday made his first appearance at a White House press briefing under the Biden administration to talk about the coronavirus.

Fauci, who was criticized several times by President Donald Trump during the pandemic, said it was “somewhat of a liberating feeling” to return to the podium and “let the science speak.” While Fauci defended the comments he made during briefings under the previous administration, he said some statements from others like Trump made him uncomfortable.

“I don’t want to be going back, you know, over history, but it’s very clear that there were things that were said, be it regarding things like hydroxychloroquine and other things like that, that really was uncomfortable, because they were not based on scientific fact,” Fauci said. “I can tell you, I take no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the president.”

However, Fauci defended action taken by the Trump administration, disputing reports that the Biden administration’s vaccine efforts had to start “from scratch.”

“I mean we’re coming in with fresh ideas but also some ideas that were not bad ideas with the previous administration. You can’t say it was absolutely not usable at all. So, we are continuing but you’re going to see a real ramping up of it,” he said.

Fauci expressed concern about the current state of the outbreak and the death toll, which has topped 400,000 in the U.S. He also discussed the variants first documented in the U.K. and South Africa, saying he believes vaccines will still have an effect on the spread of the strains.

Even if the variant first documented in South Africa causes some diminution in the efficacy of antibodies produced from the vaccine like some early research has suggested, Fauci said that a “cushion effect” could offer protection.

“It is all the more reason why we should be vaccinating as many people as you possibly can because as long as the virus is out there replicating, viruses don’t mutate unless they replicate,” Fauci said. “And if you can suppress that by a very good vaccine campaign, then you can actually avoid this deleterious effect that you might get from the mutations.”