FAUCI BACK PEDALING ON SHUTTING DOWN THE WORLD

Video Transcript:

Do you regret particularly the last one, the shutdown, the sweeping shutdown that some said made things worse? No, I don't, Neil. And in fact, I think we need to make sure that your listeners understand I didn't shut down anything. I recommended to the president that we shut the country down. And the only way to do that is by draconian means of essentially shutting down the country. We know that we can do that if we shut down. Well, I think one of the things you really need to do to the extent that you can shut down temporarily. The country, I think, is important. Well, if I knew at the time that shutting down would have such a dramatic effect on controlling the spread, obviously we would have shut down earlier. There were those who say you shut down you destructive things by disrupting the economy. And others say, well, if you save so many infections by shutting down, why didn't you shut down two weeks earlier? But I don't regret saying that the only way we could have really stopped the explosion of infection was by essentially, I want to say shutting down. I mean, essentially having the physical separation and the kinds of recommendations that we've made. You've been a big fan of Cuomo and the shutdown of New York. You've lauded New York for their policy. New York had the highest death rate in the world. How can we possibly be jumping up and down and saying, oh, Governor Cuomo did a great job? No. Hit the worst death rate in the world. No, you misconstrued that, Senator.