Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden and top COVID-19 adviser, says he was nervous about having to go to the White House when the virus ran rampant there during the Trump presidency.
Fauci told Axios in an interview clip posted on Monday that at 80 years old, he was well aware of being at high risk of suffering a “serious outcome” from a COVID-19 infection.
“I didn’t fixate on that, but it was in the back of my mind because I had to be out there,” the doctor said. “I mean, particularly when I was going to the White House every day, when the White House was sort of a super-spreader location. I mean, that made me a little bit nervous.”
The White House saw a spate of infections when it was occupied by ex-President Donald Trump, who refused to wear a mask, as did many of his staffers. The Rose Garden party in honor of Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett in September proved to be a particularly infamous super-spreader event at the White House, and Trump was hospitalized for the virus not long afterward.
After Biden won the election, his transition team made plans to have every area of the East and West Wings cleaned and disinfected immediately after Trump’s departure.
Additionally, several hundred Biden aides received the vaccine.
