Dr. Fauci Knocks Down ‘False Narrative’ From Fox News Contributor About COVID-19 ‘Certificates of Immunity’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Donald Trump’s infection diseases expert, knocked down what he called a “false narrative” from a Fox News contributor about the possibility of coronavirus immunity certificates incentivizing people to get infected.
Fauci was confronted with this idea during an appearance on The Story with Martha MacCallum, where one of the host’s questions quoted a Tweet from Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce. In it, she suggested that any government-issued “certificates of immunity” could “incentivize getting the virus while punishing those who stayed healthy.”
He’s been discussing “certificates of immunity” when it comes to opening things up & moving people back into work. Until we have a vaccine, how does that not *incentivize* getting the virus while punishing those who stayed healthy?
— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) April 10, 2020
“No, I mean, that is sort of a false narrative,” a clearly befuddled Fauci replied. “I can’t imagine someone would want to get the virus when you know what the virus can do.” As of Friday, more than 18,000 Americans and more than 100,000 people worldwide have died from complications arising from COVID-19.
“I think the point is if you haven’t had it, that you would not be able to get one of those cards and go about your life,” MacCallum said, following up on Bruce’s claim.
“You know, I don’t think that it’s going to turn out, quite frankly,” Fauci replied, again pushing back on Bruce’s premise that someone “certified immune” would have an advantage over those who never got infected.
“There has been a lot of talk about the certificates of immunity. I think until we get enough testing out there to get a real feel for the penetrance of this disinfection in society, there might be some surprises about that,” he added. “Because we don’t know, a certain fact that we’re not sure of, what percentage of people who are infected are those who are completely asymptomatic? Are there people who have been infected, cleared the virus, never knew they were infected, never knew they were sick? Is that 10%, 20%, 50%? We don’t know it yet. When we get antibody testing, that we can do serosurveillances of representative sections of the population, then we’ll have a better feel for that. Until then we don’t know.”
Watch the video above, via Fox News.
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