“Follow the Fauci, and we’ll get through this”

“We’re worried for you, so please follow the Fauci,” he said.

“In the spring and early summer we lived the horror of neighbors and friends sick and dying. Doctors and nurses we know and admire so were in the depths of depression, inside hospitals with no more beds, with the freezer trucks outside full of victims whose families never got to say goodbye. We could bang our pots and pans from our windows to show love for our heroes, but we couldn’t help. Except we went into lockdown. Our region was like a sprawling ghost town. Everybody indoors, thawing chicken for dinner again and playing cards and watching Netflix for hours and weeks on end. Every day Groundhog Day — missing our friends and our lives so much to slow the spread and end the death and suffering. And finally it worked. We’re scarred, but better now. And at least for now because we followed the rules and beat COVID back. We had to. Many of you are not doing that. And the doctors tell us you will now suffer mightily like we did, or worse, because lockdown is largely not coming to you. Scientists tell us the months ahead will be historically bad, unless you make a personal decision to follow the Fauci.”

He told viewers in states facing surges that they should “avoid what we endured,’ so he again emphasized the public health measures everyone should still be following and concluded, “Follow the Fauci, and we’ll get through this.”