“I think the — the data speaks for themselves,” Fauci said of mask-wearing. “We had a super-spreader event in the White House and it was in a situation where people were crowded together and were not wearing masks. So the data speak for themselves.”…

Turning to the president’s health, the infectious diseases expert did not think that the fact that the president was heard coughing during an interview with Fox News on Thursday night was cause for alarm. He walked through the COVID symptoms that could still be evident, even as Mr. Trump’s health may be improving.

“Most people, when they recover, they recover fine. In a linear fashion, they get better and better and better, which it appears that the president is doing,” Fauci said. “But having a bit of a lingering cough is not at all unusual as someone recovers. So I was not that taken aback by the clip that you just told me because when people do recover, they can have a lingering cough and maybe even a little shortness of breath for a while after they recover. Sometimes it takes a while to get everything back to normal.”