- The former NIAID director said his worst nightmare is another pandemic
- An “emerging pathogen with pandemic potential” is “inevitable,” he said
- READ MORE: CDC warns of new ‘triple epidemic’ this winter
Dr. Anthony Fauci has warned that another pandemic is ‘inevitable’.
The former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) revealed in an editorial that his “worst nightmare” with Covid came true and that he fears nothing was learned from a public health perspective during that outbreak to keep us safe.
Now that America has emerged from the Covid crisis, he said his nightmare remains the same: a new “emerging pathogen with pandemic potential.”
The new challenge would be overcoming the lack of “corporate memory,” Fauci said, and not becoming “complacent” when deaths “fall to ‘acceptable’ levels.”
Dr. Anthony Fauci (talking to DailyMail.com in July 2023) said he still believed Covid arose naturally despite mounting circumstantial evidence of a laboratory accident
He said that in his role at NIAID, he was often asked what kept him awake at night, or what his worst nightmare was.
He said that before January 2020, this was “the possibility of the emergence of an entirely new pathogen, almost certainly a virus… that could cause significant morbidity and mortality.”
“Over the past three years, we have all lived through my worst nightmare,” he said.
The commentary piece, published in Scientific translational medicineincluded his key lessons from Covid that will help against the ‘next inevitable pandemic.’
He applauded the “achievement of getting a safe and highly effective vaccine into people’s arms – resulting in saving millions of lives” and noted the contributions of Dr. Drew Weissman and Dr. Katalin Kariko, who founded the have laid the foundation for the development of highly effective mRNA vaccines. against Covid.
Both scientists received the Nobel Prizes for their work in 2023.
Dr. Fauci also addressed public health issues, admitting that America was “less successful” in public health than in science.
He said the reasons for the failure were “institutional weaknesses, such as fragmented healthcare systems, and the gap between healthcare delivery and public healthcare infrastructure.”
Dr. Fauci also admitted: “Inconsistencies in adopting and enforcing mitigation methods such as masking, distancing and lockdowns caused confusion and a lack of adoption of public health recommendations.”
In the three years since Covid struck, Dr. Fauci came under scrutiny after he overstated the effectiveness of vaccines to boost uptake, donned face masks and pushed for lockdowns.
In March 2020, as concerns about Covid increased worldwide, Fauci told Americans there was “no need” to wear a face mask. He emphasized at the time that they can only help people ‘feel a little better’, and can ‘stop even a droplet’ – but would not provide good protection.
Less than a month later, however, he urged all Americans to wear them and became a face mask enthusiast, pushing for mandatory face coverings for children ages two and up.
He later admitted that the reason the public was advised not to wear masks initially was to save them for healthcare workers.