Trump administration's lack of honesty in handling COVID-19 'very likely' cost lives: Fauci

Chief Medical Advisor to the US President, Anthony Fauci said that the lack of truthfulness from the previous President Donald Trump's administration pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic "very likely" cost American lives.

"Particularly when you're in the situation of almost being in a crisis with the number of cases and hospitalizations and deaths that we have -- when you start talking about things that make no sense medically and no sense scientifically, that clearly is not helpful," Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said in an interview to CNN.

When asked if the lack of candour over the last year and lack of facts, in some cases, lead to over 400,000 people dead from COVID-19, Fauci said, "You know, it very likely did."

Fauci said that it's "not helpful" when "you're starting to go down paths that are not based on any science at all," adding that he doesn't wish to rehash the ways in which the Trump administration steered away from science.

The Biden administration's approach to handling the Covid-19 pandemic will be "completely transparent, open and honest" with the American people, said Fauci on Thursday.

"If things go wrong, not point fingers but to correct them. And to make everything we do be based on science and evidence," he told reporters

CNN reported that Fauci said that it was "uncomfortable" when things like hydroxychloroquine were promoted as treatments for Covid-19 when they weren't based on fact and that he takes "no pleasure at all in being in a situation of contradicting the President."

The medical advisor to Biden said that it is a "liberating feeling" to now be able to "talk about what you know, what the evidence, what the science is," without fear of repercussions.

ANI

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