When Dr. Anthony Fauci arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. for his first White House press briefing under the new Biden Administration, he could see things would be different.
It was the day after the Inauguration, and President Joe Biden was eager to get the country’s Covid-19 response back on track. Five minutes before he addressed the public, the new President told Fauci: "I want you to just go and tell the science."
“It was a really good feeling, because it was really showing that science is going to rule,” says Fauci, who had become renowned as a target of the ire of President Trump and his supporters, reports Time.
That rule has produced rapid results. Biden pledged to administer 100 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine in his first 100 days in office; an invigorated, combined federal and state effort achieved that goal in 58, leading to a new target of 200 million doses, which was also met a week ahead of schedule and led to the latest sprint to vaccinate 70 percent of American adults with at least one dose by the Fourth of July.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans now approve of Biden’s handling of the pandemic, according to an ABC News-Ipsos poll. As the Biden team’s chief medical adviser, much of the credit goes to Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci’s advice has been a part of every Covid-19-related decision made by the Biden Administration, beginning even before Biden took office.