For Fauci, a man who has dedicated his career to stopping the spread of infectious diseases, the accusations that he is somehow behind the emergence of the virus amounts to a case of blaming the messenger. "It's a little bit bizarre, I would say. ... Peter Navarro saying I created the virus?" Fauci said in an interview with Fox News' Neil Cavuto. "Isn't that weird? Come on." Even from the early days of the pandemic, Republican criticism of Fauci has been relentless, a fact that stems from his sometimes public disagreements with Trump's false statements downplaying the threat of the virus. It was Fauci, after all, who was telling Americans to stay home, wear masks and keep businesses shuttered, while Trump advised the opposite. The partisan dynamic has continued to play out when it comes to vaccination. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released earlier this month found that while 73 percent of Democrats said they've already been vaccinated and an additional 7 percent planned to get a shot as soon as possible, just 56 percent of Republicans said they had been vaccinated, with another 4 percent indicating they would soon.