The architect of President Biden’s coronavirus policies, Dr. Anthony Fauci, announced on Monday his resignation as the President’s chief medical advisor and as the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director.
The statement released by the NIAID says that Fauci, who had earlier said he’d resign before Biden’s term in office ends in January 2025, noted he’ll leave his positions in December.
Fauci, who became President Biden’s chief medical advisor at the start of his term last January and served as head of the NIAID for 38 years, added he has no plans to retire and announced continuing his work to advance science and public health and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders.
Fauci, whose resignation was not completely unexpected, has become a deeply divisive figure advising former President Donald Trump on Covid-19 and later overseeing Biden’s response to the virus.
While Republicans and conservatives are considering his vaccine and mask mandates as tyrannical, Democrats and liberals were viewing him as a representative of science itself, something he also emphasized once responding to critics.
Being the public face of the US response to the pandemic made him a target for some conspiracy theorists, after which his security was stepped up due to threats to his personal safety.
Despite having received four vaccine doses, Fauci himself tested positive in June and again two weeks later, which he described as a ‘rebound’ experienced by some people who took Pfizer’s antiviral drug Paxlovid.
Fauci, who described the current state of COVID in the US as steady, predicted that, in a bid to keep the virus at bay in the future, Americans would be asked to take yearly or twice-yearly vaccine shots.
The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) showed the weekly average in the US is just under 94,000 cases of Covid-19 per day, down from the January spike of 475,000 but higher compared to the 2020 and 2021 summer months.
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