My dying COVID patient wrongly saw Anthony Fauci as villain. Our politics has fallen ill.

Less than a year ago, I was standing in front of a man who would soon die from COVID-19. I was his doctor, and despite antiviral and anti-inflammatory medications, his lungs were failing.

One day while watching the news and hooked up to an indescribable amount of oxygen, he looked me in the eye and said: Anthony Fauci is a crook.

He went on to tell me that the vaccines were a government conspiracy. He would have continued talking, but the effort exhausted him.

Today, I rarely see a patient so direly sick from COVID-19. We are in a much different space with effective vaccines and antivirals, championed in large part by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Capping an incredible career with intense backlash

Many see Fauci, the most prominent spokesperson for the government’s public health messaging, as a hero. Others see him as a quack or a criminal, as my deceased patient did.

Fauci, 81, who has been the head of NIAID since 1984, recently announced he would retire from that role and from his role as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. In doing so, he leaves chimeric legacies of incredible medical achievement and of intense public backlash.

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It is still difficult for me to understand this hatred of Fauci. Through his career, he has worked to understand and limit the damage from several infectious diseases, from HIV/AIDS to avian flu and now COVID-19. His efforts have contributed to countless saved American lives. But in the past two years, Fauci and his work have faced intense politicization and condemnation.

Perhaps spurred by former President Donald Trump's disagreements with his own adviser, or the fact that he advocated for what might be seen as limits on personal freedom with masks, public closures and social distancing, Fauci became a lightning rod for conservative hatred. Unfortunately, this feeling bled into all governmental public health recommendations, including toward the efficacious vaccines.

A study from the Pew Research Center found that, as of December, only 29% of U.S. adults had a great deal of confidence that medical scientists act in the best interests of the public. Perhaps not a surprisingly small number given the divided political climate.

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Had we heeded his guidance, more would have lived

This anti-Fauci mentality was and is anti-intellectual and dangerous. With more than 1 million deaths from COVID-19, so many people would be alive today if we had listened to our top doctors and scientists, instead of forgoing masks and embracing disproven treatments like hydroxychloroquine.

Now we are at a point where we can live with the virus – and we must also live with our previous choices.

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It can certainly be hard to cut through the political noise when even our elected officials direct nonsense and hate toward Fauci, such as when Rep. Neal Dunn, R-Fla., tweeted, "Make no mistake, his resignation WILL NOT stop us from investigating his role & the origins of the #COVID19 pandemic."

We need to look inward and get back to trusting public health officials. We need to stop viewing every recommendation through a political lens. Infectious diseases do not affect just the red constituents or blue constituents. They can devastate all Americans. While Fauci's messaging was not always clear and decisive, his intention was always to save lives.

As a front-line health care worker, I want to thank Dr. Fauci for his work over the past two years. Our hospital wards were bursting with patients stricken with the virus just 12 months ago, but I know it certainly could have been much worse had there not been a steady voice advocating data-driven public health policy and science.

While there are still deaths occurring today, testing positive for COVID-19 is now typically more incidental than a cause of hospitalization. So, thank you, Dr. Anthony Fauci, for guiding us to this point. Maybe stay off Twitter to avoid the vitriol, and enjoy retirement.

Dr. Thomas K. Lew, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is an assistant clinical professor of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and an attending physician of Hospital Medicine at Stanford Health Care Tri-Valley. All opinions expressed here are his own. Follow him on Twitter: @ThomasLewMD 

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Amid COVID policy pushback, Dr Fauci announces he's stepping down