Fauci reveals what still baffles him about the pandemic

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical officer for President Joe Biden’s administration, told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota that during the pandemic he’d been intellectually pained to see hospitals overrun with coronavirus patients in the same regions where deniers were calling the public health crisis a “hoax” or “fake news.”

“How could you possibly say that when people in your own state, your own city, your own county, are dying?” Fauci asked.

“To me, that just boggled me, and it still does,” he continued. “How reality can just be put aside in denying the seriousness of the situation we are in. And here we are today, looking at 500,000 Americans who have died thus far. That’s the proof of what has actually been going on. You can’t deny that.”