Dr. Anthony Fauci: The Physician Leading America’s Fight Against the Coronavirus

EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND
 
Anthony Fauci was born on December 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. His parents, Stephan and Eugenia owned a pharmacy situated below their apartment. Anthony used to work at his parents pharmacy alongside his sister. Although it was customary at the time for sons to takeover their father’s business, Anthony decided to take another career path. After finishing school, he enrolled at the College of the Holy Cross eventually graduating with Bachelor of Arts in Classics. Afterwards, he attended medical school at Cornell University Medical College graduating first in 1966. 
 
NIH AND NIAD
 
Two years after earning his medical degree, Fauci joined the National Institutes for Health (NIH), the primary agency in the US dealing with medical and biomedical research. He first became a clinical associate in the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation (LCI). Over the years, his hard work would be awarded, as he became the Head of the Clinical Physiology Section of the LCI. Then, in 1984 he became the Head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAD). To this day he remains in that position. 
 
 HIV/AIDS EPIDEMIC 
 
The coronavirus pandemic is not the first time Fauci made headlines in the US. During the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, Fauci was one of the medical experts leading the research and fight against the virus. While Fauci did face some pushback and criticism from activists, he did play an instrumental role in saving the lives of countless people in the US. Under his watch, drugs such as azidothymidine, Ddc and ddl. Although, he and his team tried to manufacture a vaccine for the virus, they failed in doing so. 
 
AN ADVISOR TO EVERY PRESIDENT SINCE REAGON
 
Dr. Fauci has been a medical advisor to every US president since Ronald Reagan. His efforts were recognised by President George W. Bush in 2007 when he awarded him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2014, amid the Ebola outbreak he made headlines again as he was one of the individuals tackling the disease. Nevertheless, as the virus eventually dissipated, the task was subsided. However, in the span of just six years he would find himself in a much tougher battle. 
 
CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE
 
HIV/AIDS nature of spreading made education an integral part of ending its status as an epidemic. Furthermore, Ebola went just as fast as it came, making any preventative measures unnecessary. However, in late 2019 a new kind of virus was discovered in Wuhan, China. COVID-19 is a highly contagious respiratory virus that in some cases can cause death, especially in the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. As the virus was making its way through Asia in early 2020, many Western countries, including the US, downplayed the possibility of it reaching them. However, by March Europe was quickly becoming the new epicentre for the virus, while the US was seeing its first cases of coronavirus. In January, US President Donald Trump formed the Coronavirus Task Force with the aim of stopping the virus from spreading in the country. Dr. Fauci was the leading expert of this task force; this meant that Fauci would not only be making headlines in the US but the whole entire world. Recently, Fauci expressed concern over the George Floyd protests citing that large gatherings might cause a new spike of the virus and advised people to wear a mask. Furthermore, he recently came under fire for explaining why the government claimed that masks didn’t work during the early days of the pandemic. He stated that the government was concerned that recommending masks would cause people to buy surgical masks causing a shortage for medical workers, however now that no shortage crisis happened, the government is recommending face coverings. While Fauci has had an illustrious 50-year career, it seems that he might be remembered for the government’s failings in handling the pandemic.