Fauci on what happened to those daily White House coronavirus task force meetings
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During a live interview with Yahoo News, top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci answered questions about the White House coronavirus task force, of which he is a member. Although the group no longer meets every day, Fauci said, it continues to gather once a week and hold discussions with the vice president.
Video Transcript
MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Dr. Fauci, is the White House COVID task force still meeting, and if so, how often and when's the last time you attended a meeting?
ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, Michael, it used to be, in the height of things, when we were concentrating very heavily on the issues of public health, we were meeting sometimes seven days a week. Then it went down to five. We're down to about, I would say, a consistent one day a week. But in addition to that, we do have what's called a governors meeting, where certain members of the task force are with the vice president. We used to do it exclusively in person, but now we're doing it more virtually where we interact with the governors and answer their questions.
And then several of the doctors on this task force-- led by Dr. Birx, who is the coordinator; myself; Steve Hahn, the Commissioner of FDA; Bob Redfield; Seema Verma from CMS-- we meet together at least once a week, either by phone or in person. Over the last couple of weeks, because of the degree of infection in the environment of the White House, we've done that mostly virtually. So the short answer to your question is official task force meetings once a week, plus governor meetings, and other phone calls.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Are you still invited?
ANTHONY FAUCI: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF: To the White House.
ANTHONY FAUCI: Yeah, absolutely.
MICHAEL ISIKOFF: And when's the last time you briefed the president?
ANTHONY FAUCI: Well, I don't know what you mean by brief. I spoke to the president last week. I don't want to be talking about the kinds of things you talk to the president of the United States. That's not appropriate. But I did speak to him last week.
