Dr. Fauci Says Biden ‘Very Much Involved’ in Covid Task Force, Team Says Mask Orders Helping Bring Down Cases

Dr. Anthony Fauci confirmed Friday that President Joe Biden has daily involvement in his administration’s coronavirus response effort, when asked by Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher.

“Can you tell me how frequently you on the team are in contact with President Biden and Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and how responsive do you think they have been to your policy recommendations?” Christopher asked Fauci during Friday’s Covid-19 press briefing.

Fauci revealed that he has frequent communication with the president, noting that he has already had three interactions with Biden regarding the pandemic in just a couple of weeks.

“Either virtually or twice at White House,” Fauci said of his past briefings with Biden. “Once in the State Dining Room and once in the Oval Office just last week. So, he is very, very much involved, literally on a daily basis, obviously, because you have Jeff Zients briefing him continually, but personally as a member of the team, together with Dr. Walensky and others on the team, we have seen him at least once a week, and maybe a little bit more.”

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the new Director of the CDC, later addressed a second question from Christopher, who asked if the team had seen any evidence that Biden’s mask mandate slowed down the spread of the virus.

“I think it’s probably too early to reflect on what is happening with the mask order now, because it will be, you know, we have a lot of things that have happened at the same time,” she said. “First, it is the case that cases are coming down. And I do think the mask order is helping to protect people and having those cases coming down. But what is also happening is that we are coming off of the case bump from the holidays, and so a lot of things are happening at once.”

“We are going to be watching the mask data very carefully,” she added, noting that a report did show hospitalization rates going down following the first three weeks of a mask order in 10 states. 

Watch above, via MSNBC.