{"id":21906,"date":"2026-07-30T10:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=21906"},"modified":"2026-07-30T10:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T05:06:19","slug":"takeaways-from-anthony-faucis-covid-era-diaries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=21906","title":{"rendered":"Takeaways from Anthony Fauci&#8217;s COVID-era diaries"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"prism-article-body\">\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">A diary played an unusual role in a <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fauci-covid19-pandemic-senate-rand-paul-a774a79e46824ebec9e8e270b9cb9825\">contentious Senate hearing Wednesday<\/a> \u2013 musings from Dr. Anthony Fauci, a scientist who became a leading voice in the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, for years has accused Fauci, the longtime top <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/health-d9ca855cbf3589e9443a710341129681\">infectious disease official<\/a> at the National Institutes of Health, of lying about the origins of the coronavirus. In previous hearings, the now-retired Fauci denied the accusation, <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fauci-covid-pandemic-origin-congress-a66625482f25824476ee315484790230\">calling it \u201cpreposterous.\u201d<\/a> On Wednesday, he <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/fauci-covid19-pandemic-senate-rand-paul-a774a79e46824ebec9e8e270b9cb9825\">invoked the Fifth Amendment<\/a> in declining to answer more questions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">But Paul drew public attention to the latest proceeding by releasing more than 1,000 pages of a long-running diary that Fauci kept \u2013 entries that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Fox News his agency extracted from government computers and provided to the GOP-led committee.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Paul drew on selected excerpts to argue that Fauci&#8217;s \u201cprivate record tells a different story\u201d than what he told the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Some of the entries already were reflected in Fauci\u2019s 2024 memoir and in interviews at the time &#8211; including the uncertainty that he and other scientists faced as they tried to understand a never-before-seen virus and how best to fight it. Here are some takeaways from the diaries, including quotes that have been edited to remove typos:<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Diary entry from January 26, 2020, about whether infections were connected to a market in China where animals were sold:<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cIt now appears using epi data and genomic data that the first infection was in early December and was not connected to the market. The infections spread among people weeks before the Chinese reported that they were dealing with a new infection and that gave the virus time to establish itself in multigenerational (sustained) spread. Remember, early on the Chinese were saying that there is no human to human transmission and all the original 27 cases were from the market. Now we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier. Having said that, somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Fauci publicly used almost the same wording a few weeks later in an interview with USA Today: \u201cAlmost certainly, somewhere, somehow a bat infected an intermediate host who infected a human. What epidemiologists feel is that the market was an amplifier of something that was already going on. So it didn\u2019t necessarily start in the market, but when people congregated in the market they got infected from each other as opposed to all of them getting infected from whatever animal there was in the market.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Those comments were discussing the very beginning of frantic efforts to figure out the origins of the virus. In other diary entries, Fauci discussed bringing together government and non-government scientists who wondered about whether it could have been a lab leak, a theory Paul champions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Today <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/covid-origins-animal-lab-leak-china-trump-5e0f66341e440181d7335e3857a3da7a\">there isn\u2019t definitive proof<\/a> but many scientists believe the virus most likely emerged in nature and jumped from animals to people \u2013 and that the market was an early source of spread. Fauci has long said that he was open to both theories but that there\u2019s more evidence supporting COVID-19\u2019s natural origins, like with its cousin SARS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Fauci\u2019s back-and-forth relationship with President Donald Trump \u2013 who initially praised the scientist but eventually derided him \u2013 drew lots of press attention. Fauci recorded his perspective of good and bad days in multiple entries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Diary entry March 11, 2020:<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cWe went in and presented to the POTUS and he asked good questions, many of them to me. He agreed and was clearly concerned more about the health of the American people than he was about the economy, which he said would recover.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Diary entry Aug. 4, 2020, Fauci describes a White House meeting with Trump and other administration officials where Trump was angry with multiple participants including him:<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cHe started raving that we are seeing more cases only because we are doing more testing,\u201d Fauci wrote, continuing that he told the president, \u201cIncreased testing does not cause cases. When you increase testing you will of course pick up asymptomatics whom you might otherwise not notice. However, when you have increased percent positives and increased hospitalization, and increased deaths, that means that there are truly more cases.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The diary is full of entries that start with a lengthy recounting of each day\u2019s events and then move on to Fauci\u2019s increasing media and celebrity attention.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Diary entry May 13, 2020:<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">\u201cHad a wonderful Instagram discussion organized by the ONE Campaign with Julia Roberts. She was absolutely fabulous. She embarrassed me somewhat when I sat down in the chair and appeared on the screen through Zoom, she put her hands in front of her mouth and said \u2018Oh my God. It\u2019s Dr. Fauci, he is here.\u2019 Then she went on to say that I was her personal hero and how happy she was to have this conversation with me. We discussed COVID-19 and its potential impact on the developing world. I told her that we have a moral responsibility to help and also we have enlightened self-interest in that if the outbreak continues in the developing world, it will always be a threat to the rest of the world. Also, we discussed the importance of including the developing world in the vaccine trials.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Fauci recounted a call from Trump&#8217;s then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows when Trump was sick in an entry that used \u201csxs\u201d for \u201csymptoms\u201d and included details about Trump&#8217;s temperature, his oxygen level, which had dropped to worrying levels, and the decision to give the president an antiviral medication. <\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Diary entry October 4, 2020:<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC eTIW sUzSN \">\u201cMark Meadows called my cell while I was walking on the C <!-- -->&amp;<!-- --> O Canal at around 8:30 AM to ask my advice about when the POTUS could go out publicly again. I mentioned that the CDC guidelines say 10 days from the onset of sxs. His sxs started Thursday, Oct. 1 and so 10 days would be Saturday, Oct. 10. Mark told me that on Friday his temp was 103 and his O2 sat was in the 80s. That triggered the Remdesivir. Today (Sunday) he is up and about in his room and is afebrile. O2 sat is improved and he feels much better. I told Mark to send the POTUS my best wishes.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A diary played an unusual role in a contentious Senate hearing Wednesday \u2013 musings from Dr. Anthony Fauci, a scientist who became a leading voice in the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, for years has accused Fauci, the longtime top infectious disease official at the National Institutes of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.abcnewsfe.com\/a\/ef587aad-90b6-4dee-a40c-02c1dcf6ef7c\/wirestory_6b25da9f75a0becbaf2886ab22643e67_16x9.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-hub"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}