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  • 2020-09-24 (xsd:date)
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  • Did Dr. Fauci Criticize Trump's China Travel Restrictions? (en)
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  • One of the staples of press conferences and rallies held by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020 was his attempts to deflect criticism of his leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic by asserting that he imposed a ban on travel from China in February over the objections of nearly everyone else -- particularly over the objections of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). For example, during a Fox News Business interview with Maria Bartiromo in May, Trump maintained that, When I closed the border to China, [Fauci] disagreed with that, and his decision to restrict travel to the U.S. from China was criticized by everybody, including Dr. Fauci: And during a July interview with Greta Van Susteren, Trump claimed that Fauci and other experts had told him, Don't close off China. Don't ban China, but he imposed a ban over their advice: But comments made by Fauci -- and Trump himself -- at the time the China travel restriction was implemented (and afterwards) contradict Trump's later claims. It is true that after participating in a Jan. 24 briefing on Capitol Hill (when only a small handful of COVID-19 coronavirus disease cases had been reported in the U.S.), Fauci said both he and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Robert Redfield told senators that imposing travel restrictions was not a good idea at this time and averred it would create a lot of disruption economically and otherwise and it wouldn't necessarily have a positive effect. He also stated that a travel ban wasn't something that was being considered at the time: But by Jan. 31, the day that the travel restrictions were announced, Fauci spoke supportively of them during a press briefing: Three days later, during an interview with CNBC, Fauci again spoke supportively of the China travel restrictions, referring to them as part of good public health measures: A week after the China travel ban was enacted, The Hill quoted Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Alex Azar as saying that the travel restrictions were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials at HHS (which includes Fauci's NIAID) and also quoted Fauci as stating that the positives [of the travel ban] outweigh the negatives: During another press briefing at the end of February, Fauci again spoke of the importance of the travel restrictions in helping to contain the spread of COVID-19: In a Feb. 28 appearance on Fox Business' Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fauci again emphasized the importance of the China travel restriction in limiting COVID-19 cases in the U.S.: According to a March 2020 Wall Street Journal article, it was HHS health officials (including Fauci) who had to convince Trump to agree to the China travel ban, not the other way around: Similarly, The New York Times reported in March 2020 that Trump had been skeptical about imposing travel restrictions, but he was convinced of the necessity for action by public health officials, including Fauci: During an April 13 Coronavirus Task Force press briefing, Fauci said that he (and others) had recommended the China travel restriction to Trump, and at that same briefing, Trump averred that he and Fauci had been on the same page about dealing with the COVID-19 threat from the beginning: In short, all the available public comments by Fauci about the imposition of China travel restrictions, as well as press reporting on that issue, indicate that the NIAID director was a consistent advocate and supporter of the travel ban from the beginning, not an opponent or critic of it. Moreover, comments from government officials and White House aides referenced in press accounts suggest that it was Trump himself, not Fauci, who initially expressed resistance to imposing the travel restrictions -- only several months after the fact did the president begin contradicting his earlier statements and asserting that he had agreed to the ban despite objections and criticism from Fauci and everybody else. (en)
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