Fauci calls Covid the 'Wuhan strain': Top doctor slammed for 'racist' term after Trump was criticized by liberals for referring to it as the 'China virus'
Dr. Anthony Fauci referred to the first strain of COVID as the 'Wuhan strain' during his first Fox News appearance since July, drawing comparisons to the widespread backlash former president Trump faced when he called it the 'China Virus'
On Friday Fauci appeared on the Fox Business Network's Cavuto: Coast to Coast to discuss the US' strategy to quell the new Omicron variant, which emerged last week in Southern Africa.
Fauci's Friday appearance on the network comes shortly after it was revealed that the doctor - who has become a lightning rod for conservatives opposing vaccination and mask mandates - would be again entertaining interview requests from the network, after reportedly turning down their requests for months.
While explaining the importance of booster vaccinations to combat the Omicron variant, Dr. Fauci referred to the original strain of COVID as the 'Wuhan strain'
On Friday Fauci appeared on the Fox Business Network's Cavuto: Coast to Coast to discuss the US' strategy to quell the new Omicron variant
During his appearance Fauci said there is no chance of COVID being eliminated but said it could be controlled with increased immunity through the booster vaccine.
'I don't think there's a chance you're going to eradicate this because we've only eradicated one virus for humans in history and that was smallpox. Elimination is tough,' he said. 'I'm not so sure we're going to be able to do that, at least not in the near future. That's aspirational.'
'We do know that with the boosters we're giving now, we're not only getting a higher level of immunity, we're getting a more breadth of immunity, which I believe may give us more duration. So better control is what I think we need to look for and then we can get back to some form of normality to our lives,' he added.
While explaining the importance of booster vaccinations to combat the Omicron variant, Dr. Fauci referred to the original strain of COVID as the 'Wuhan strain.'
'You hear me talk a lot about boosters, Neil, and the reason I do is that if you look at the vaccination, we were vaccinated against the original, what we call ''ancestral or Wuhan strain'' yet when you get antibodies from that vaccination and when you get boosted, the level of protection spills over to Delta, Alpha, Beta and very likely will spill over to Omicron,' he said.
Fauci's comments have been called out after former president Trump was slammed for repeatedly referring to COVID-19 as the 'China virus' and was even called 'xenophobic' by President Biden.
On Monday White House press secretary Jen Psaki clarified that President Joe Biden was referring to former President Donald Trump's 'China virus' tweets and not his travel ban when he called Trump 'xenophobic' last year.
'What the president was critical of was the way that the former president put out, I believe, a xenophobic tweet and what he called the coronavirus and who he directed it at,' Psaki said at Monday's press briefing. 'The president has not been critical of travel restrictions, we have put those in place ourselves in the spring,' she added.
After Fauci's comments on Friday people online asked if Dr. Fauci would now be considered racist as many labeled Trump a xenophobe for his comments.
Bobby Starbuck, a Republican running for Congress in Tennessee tweeted: 'Who remembers when they said it was racist to call COVID the Wuhan strain or the Wuhan Flu. Now Fauci admits it!'
'Fauci calls the original virus the 'Wuhan strain'. Isn't that … racist?' The Post Millennial pondered on Twitter.
User Edfleet75 tweeted: 'Dr. Fauci (Mr. Science) refers to the original virus as the 'Wuhan strain' Wait, thought it was racist to say that . First true thing Fraudci has said'
'I was told calling it the Wuhan Virus/Strain is racist. Dr Fauci is now a racist?' Xhavit Cemenja tweeted.
Images release by the Covid Genomics UK Consortium show the drastic increase in spike protein mutations in the Omciron COVID-19 variant when compared to the Delta variant
Since it emerged the Omicron variant has spread to a variety of countries across the globe, including the States - with a case detected in California earlier in the week, and further cases being reported in states like New York, Minnesota, Hawaii, and Colorado.
Public health experts are still assessing the risks of Omicron, which has several troubling mutations that suggest it could spread quickly and potentially evade immunity from vaccines or prior infections.
The Omicron variant was discovered by South African health officials last week, and while not much is known about it yet, it is was recently found to be 2.4 times more infectious than previous variants.
Due to its high number of mutations, it's also believed to be vaccine evasive, though cases have mostly been very mild.
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