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Fauci to retire by end of Biden’s present term

Fauci, who also served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades, said he does not currently have a specific retirement date in mind nor has he started the process of retiring….reports Asian Lite News

White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr Antony Fauci has said that he is planning to retire by the end of President Joe Biden’s present term, which will end in January 2025, CNN reported on Monday.

“I have said that for a long time,” Fauci said of his plans to leave government before the end of Biden’s current term.

“By the time we get to the end of Biden’s first term, I will very likely (retire),” Fauci said.

Fauci, who also served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for decades, said he does not currently have a specific retirement date in mind nor has he started the process of retiring.

According to CNN, the White House Chief Medical Advisor said that he feels like he has established a good system at NIAID to facilitate a smooth transition at the agency and wants to pursue other career opportunities once he eventually leaves.

“Everybody in a position of any influence in my institute, I handpick. So it’s something that I’ve been working on now for four decades. So, we have a good system in place,” he said.

“Obviously, you can’t go on forever. I do want to do other things in my career, even though I’m at a rather advanced age. I have the energy and the passion to continue to want to pursue other aspects of my professional career and I’m going to do that some time. I’m not exactly sure when, but I don’t see myself being in this job to the point where I can’t do anything else after that,” Fauci added.

CNN reported that at the age of 81, Fauci has served more than five decades under seven presidents, advising every American president since Ronald Reagan. (ANI)

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-Top News USA

Anthony Fauci is Joe Biden’s kryptonite

Fauci needs to be interviewed, not by media channels that fed their readers and viewers with disinformation about the pandemic, while excoriating those who spoke the truth, but by the FBI, writes Prof. Madhav Nalapat

Is there a middle class child in India who has not come across Superman, the hero who saves the world from disaster several times over because of his extraordinary powers? The only substance that can fell Superman is kryptonite, which therefore needs to be kept away from him if he is to continue his work. Joe Biden is no superman, he is simply a good human being, and this is what got him elected to the White House over Donald Trump in 2020.

He was chosen as the Vice-Presidential candidate by Barack Obama in 2008 because of his perceived ability to engineer a bipartisan consensus (between the Republican and Democratic sides) within the US Congress, a task in which he was a spectacular failure.

Despite this, he was repeated as Vice-Presidential pick by the US President in the 2012 Presidential election because by then, Michelle and Barack Obama had come to like and respect the obvious human qualities in Jill and Joe Biden. Needless to add, Vice-President Biden failed once again in managing to achieve a consensus in the legislative process.

The Republican side adopted a stance that appears to have been influenced by factors outside policy in opposing whatever Obama proposed, Biden’s efforts notwithstanding. Biden ensured his victory by nominating Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate, but in the process, turned off any appeal he may have had to a sizeable section of the US population whose primary regret is that the wrong side won the 1861-65 Civil War.

These are folks who in the Republican Party would have taken a noose rather than a Presidential nomination to Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and who saw Donald Trump as their blood brother, united in mind and heart with their Idea of America. Should the missteps being made by President Biden and the advisors around him continue, the 2022 elections may see a Republican chokehold on both the US Senate as well as the House of Representatives.

This would render the remainder of the term of President Biden a legislative wasteland, although the best thing that can happen to the Democratic Party would be for Donald Trump to get renominated as the Presidential candidate of the Republican Party in 2024.

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Trump’s idea of a political party in a democracy is similar to that evident from the choices made by Indira Gandhi, which is that the top spot must always (naturally in the interests of the nation) belong to either her or her children, and afterwards to her grandchildren. It must be added that in many ways, Indira Gandhi caused both a cultural revolution in India as well as a geopolitical revolution in South Asia, which is why she will remain in the history book for centuries if not more, whilst most others will be forgotten, making ain footnotes.

Should the Democratic Party cede control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans in 2022, Joe Biden will not be able to even seek the nomination of his party for a second term. That his political skills are not exceptional is clear from the manner in which he has embraced Anthony Fauci, a stance that could cost his party substantially in 2022.

Under the Trump administration, it seems obvious that it was Fauci who persuaded the CIA and the National Security Council that the “Wuhan lab leak conspiracy” (as his acolytes termed it) was unlikely, when even in March 2020, it was clear from the public record that any investigation involving “science” (that much-abused word) would have before long reached the conclusion that there was no way except through a laboratory that a harmless-to-humans bat virus found in Yunnan could have evolved in a short period of time into SARS2.

Apparently, such an elementary conclusion was beyond the intellectual capacities of Fauci, who seems still to be unaware that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is (and has from the start been) a military enterprise. Any assumption that it was “science” that drove Fauci and others connected to the WIV to denying that the institute was the developer and incubator of SARS2 has melted away, except apparently in the mind of President Biden, who continues to stand by Fauci as the Vishwa Guru of health sciences.

This is the policymaker whose action and inaction helped cause the SARS2 pandemic. He needs to be interviewed, not by CNN, NYT, Washington Post and multiple other media channels that fed their readers and viewers with disinformation about the pandemic from early 2020 onwards, while excoriating those who spoke the truth, but by the FBI.

The impression is widespread that President Biden is not supporting the growing number of voices who call for an end to the cover-up of the cause of the present pandemic, something that could lead to a call for his impeachment by the US Congress before many months have passed.

Both 2022 and 2024 will be defined not just by economic policy but the approach of the White House towards China. And there is no better challenger for Henry Kissinger as the top apologist for the PRC than Anthony Fauci. The White House is on record that there will be no—repeat, no—circumstances that would make Biden send Fauci into retirement.

This stance is the best gift that Biden can give the Republican side, aside from not being able to get his Infrastructure Plan passed in the US Congress. This seems likely, as Biden seems to be managing the DINOs (Democrats in Name Only) the way he did Republican members of the US Congress during his tenure as Vice-President.

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-Top News China USA

China targets Fauci amid Wuhan lab controversy

“In terms of expertise and influence, American experts such as Fauci can hardly match Chinese top experts,” wrote Hu Xijin…reports Asian Lite News

With international media and scientists pointing fingers at the Wuhan-based Institute of Virology for Coronavirus’ production, Chinese state media has come out in defense of the country and its ruling dispensation and has targeted US infectious disease expert Dr Antony Fauci for spreading canard against China.

Editor-in-chief of Global Times Hu Xijin, in an opinion piece accused Fauci of attempting to hype “the old and groundless narrative” of coronavirus leaking from a Wuhan laboratory.”

“In terms of expertise and influence, American experts such as Fauci can hardly match Chinese top experts,” wrote Hu.

“American experts are weaker than their Chinese counterparts in understanding the epidemic and influencing the anti-virus fight,” he added.

Wuhan lab china

At a virtual event titled ‘United Facts of America: A Festival of Fact-Checking’, Fauci was asked whether he was fully convinced with the theory that the virus “developed naturally.”

“I am not convinced…I think we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened,” said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“Certainly, the people who investigated it say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could have been something else, and we need to find that out. So, you know, that’s the reason why I said I’m perfectly in favour of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,” he added.

This and a recent report by US intelligence carried by The Wall Street Journal stating that three scientists from the Wuhan Institute of Virology were hospitalised in November 2019 triggered everyone to ask relevant questions on the same.

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The newspaper said the report — which provides fresh details on the number of researchers affected, the timing of their illnesses, and their hospital visits — may add weight to calls for a broader probe of whether the Covid-19 virus could have escaped from the laboratory.

The report was followed by the United States demanding a “transparent” second phase of investigation into the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and the route of introduction to the human population.

“Phase 2 of the Covid origins study must be launched with terms of reference that are transparent, science-based, and give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak,” US health secretary Xavier Becerra said in a video message at the 74th World Health Assembly (WHA).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8pr1bztdvQ


A similar report was also carried by an Australian paper in March.

Another Global Times article called The Wall Street Journal report “an outright lie that came from nowhere.”

“This is a blatant lie, a conspiracy created by US intelligence agencies and the media outlet to slander China, and China has denied it. Is it a coincidence that Fauci repeated such lines?” the Global Times said in a report.

Meanwhile, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had not been exposed to Covid-19 before December 30, 2019, and there has been a “zero-infection” record among its staff and graduate students so far.

“What is the real purpose for the US to continue to play up the so-called “lab leak theory”? Does it really care about the origin-tracing of the virus or just wants to divert attention?” Zhao asked rhetorically at a press conference. (INN)

ALSO READ: China rejects calls for release of scholar held for alleged spying

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-Top News COVID-19 India News

DR FAUCI: ‘Covaxin can neutralise 617 Variant of Covid-19′

A breakthrough in the fight against Covid-19. White House chief medical adviser and America’s top pandemic expert Dr Anthony Fauci said Covaxin, India’s home-grown COVID-19 vaccine, has been found to neutralise the 617 variant of the deadly virus.

“This is something where we’re still gaining data on a daily basis. But the most recent data, was looking at convalescent Sera of COVID-19 cases and people who received the vaccine used in India, the Covaxin. It was found to neutralise the 617 variants,” Dr Fauci told reporters at White House.

‘So, despite the real difficulty that we’re seeing in India, vaccination could be a very, very important antidote against this,’ Fauci added.

The New York Times said Covaxin works by teaching the immune system to make antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The antibodies attach to viral proteins, such as the so-called spike proteins that stud its surface.

Developed by Bharat Biotech in partnership with National Institute of Virology and the Indian Council of Medical Research, Covaxin was approved for emergency use on January 3. Trial results later showed the vaccine has an efficacy of 78 per cent.

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