Fauci confirms reports Trump rebuffed social distancing advice

US public health adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci has confirmed reports that President Donald Trump rebuffed his social distancing advice.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, and other Trump administration officials had recommended implementing social distancing to stem the coronavirus in February, but were snubbed for almost a month.

Speaking on CNN's State of the Union program, Fauci said, “We make a recommendation, often the recommendation is taken, sometimes it’s not.”

When asked if he thought “lives could have been saved” if physical distancing and other similar measures started earlier, Fauci said, “Obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives, obviously no one is going to deny.

“But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated, but, you’re right, I mean obviously if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different but there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.”

Meanwhile, Trump on Sunday publicly signaled his irritation with Dr. Fauci over such remarks, reposting a Twitter message that said, “Time to #FireFauci.”

The message Trump retweeted was written by Republican DeAnna Lorraine who is running for Congress.

It said, “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives. Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large.”

Lorraine’s tweet was followed by a hashtag, saying, “Time to #FireFauci.”

In reposting the message, Trump called the report by The Times “Fake.”

ME