White House pushes back against Fauci's coronavirus warnings

The United States has seen a recent spike in coronavirus infections in many areas and rising tensions between the White House and Dr. Anthony Fauci—a leading infectious disease expert—have come to the public’s attention following criticism from top White House officials.

"Dr. Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on," said Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser.

"Now Fauci is saying that a falling mortality rate doesn't matter, when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. So when you ask me if I listen to Dr. Fauci's advice, my answer is only with caution."

White House officials suggested that Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been giving faulty advice since the beginning of the pandemic and has made the wrong choice on a number of occasions, according to CBS News.

Polling shows that despite the uncertainty about Fauci in the White House, he is still trusted by the majority of Americans.

In the US, cases are spiking in over 30 states which has resulted in some governors halting phased economic reopenings and reimposing restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Fauci was told not to join a press briefing on Wednesday with other White House members of the coronavirus task force which took place at the Department of Education. He did however, make an appearance at Friday’s task force briefing.

President Trump has attributed the sudden rise in cases to increased testing throughout the country and is continuing to push for the country to reopen. He also disagreed with Fauci’s belief that the US is "knee deep" in the pandemic’s first wave and has to make serious changes right away.

"I think we are in a good place," said President Trump at the time. "I disagree with him. You know, Dr. Fauci said 'don't wear masks,' and now he says 'wear them.' And you know, he's said numerous things. 'Don't close off China. Don't ban China.' And I did it anyway. I sort of didn't listen to my experts and I banned China."

In another interview, Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity that Fauci "is a nice man, but he's made a lot of mistakes."

In an interview with FiveThirtyEight’s podcast, Fauci said, "when you compare us to other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great. I mean, we're just not."

He also disagreed with President Trump’s view that the lowering mortality rate means the virus is coming under control. Fauci said that it’s "a false narrative to take comfort in a lower death rate."

"There's so many other things that are very dangerous and bad about this virus," Fauci said. "Don't get yourself into false complacency."

When speaking with the Financial Times, Fauci said he has not briefed the President in over two months.

According to Worldometers, the US has seen almost 3.5 million cases. Of those there are currently 1,782,928 active cases, and more than 1.5 million recoveries. Deaths have reached nearly 140,000. Of the active cases, 15,823 are critical.