Dr. Anthony Fauci Town Hall 👨‍⚕️

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🤔 Is Dr. Anthony Fauci a cat or a dog person? 📰 What’s happening with the Covid vaccine? 👨‍⚕️ What’s it like to be on the front lines of fighting during a pandemic? And when does the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, think it might be ok to have sleepovers again? Plus, see if you can guess the answer to the Trivia Question of the Day: Way before he became a leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Fauci was a leader in school. Which teams was he captain of in high school?

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👨‍⚕️ Uncover everything there is to know about Dr. Anthony Fauci!
🤔 Learn the best ways to protect yourself & others from COVID-19
👩🏾‍🔬 Brush up on your knowledge of the coronavirus and watch this informative video to learn more
✏️ Get some helpful tips on how to talk about Covid with your kids

Transcript

Bethany Van Delft: [00:00:00] What's happening with the COVID vaccine?  What's it like to be on the front lines of fighting a pandemic? And when does the nation's top infectious disease expert think it might be okay to have sleepovers again?  I'm Bethany Van Delft and we'll get into all of this on today's special episode of The Ten News. The show where in the time it takes Dr. Anthony Fauci to tackle the questions kids want answered, we find out what's up with the coronavirus. It's  time for a Ten News Town Hall.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

[00:00:41] The holiday season is in full swing and kids all over the country are heading into the winter break. It's a great time for a reminder of how we can all keep each other safe and help slow the spread of the coronavirus. You know the drill by now -  mask up social distance, [00:01:00] wash your hands, but maybe you have more questions about the pandemic.

[00:01:04] Well, I can't think of a better person to ask than the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

[00:01:19] Maybe you've heard of him? Dr. Fauci has held his role at the NIAID for 36 years, advising six presidents and helping the country to navigate several serious virus outbreaks before this one. He's kind of a big deal. And today he's answering questions from kids just like you!  It’s our first ever Ten News Town Hall featuring Dr. Anthony Fauci and Ten'ners from all over the country. I can't wait. Let's get into it.

Miles: [00:01:59] Hi, Dr. Fauci. My name is Miles. I'm 11 years old and I live in San Jose, California. I see you on TV talking about COVID a lot. And I was wondering what exactly is your job?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: [00:02:11] Well, my job mostly, I have actually two jobs, one a really big job, and another one, not as consuming. The big job is that I'm the Director of the Institute here at the NIH, which is right outside of Washington, DC, which is called the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. And were responsible for funding or doing most of the research associated with infectious diseases of all types, HIV AIDS, Ebola, Zika and now COVID-19. And when I say research, I mean, we are involved in the development of the vaccines that we're going to talk about in a little bit. Our [00:03:00] group here was very heavily involved in that, into development of drugs. The team that's worked on the vaccine that have made contributions to all the vaccine is a team at the NIH Vaccine Research Center. It's made up of a number of people, very diverse from all parts of the country. We actually have one of the lead investigators is a woman, uh, Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett, we call her Kizzy, she's a young African American doctor who has played a significant role in the development of a vaccine.

[00:03:35] So she's a good role model for young women who want to get into science. In addition, I'm a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and that's the reason why you see me on TV a lot, because I get out there and talk about the public health measures that we need to do to stay safe and avoid infection.

[00:03:58] So I'm doing two things [00:04:00] simultaneously running the Institute and being a part of the White House Task Force.

Kirin: [00:04:05] Hi, my name is Kiran. I'm 11 years old and I'm from California. I've a dog named Fauci, and my dad is a doctor. Did you always want to be a doctor?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: [00:04:15] Well, I'd have to say honestly, I didn't always want to be a doctor, but as soon as I went into high school and started to get a feel for wanting to do things that involved people.

[00:04:30] And when I got interested in science and biology, I made a decision sometime in the middle of high school, that the best combination of being able to be with people, but to also do things, to help people, that helping them with their health and to stay well is one of the best ways to help people. So I put those two things together and what came out was being a doctor.

Hazel: [00:04:57] Hi, my name is Hazel and I'm 10 years old. And my question for you is what does it feel like to have such an important job?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, what it feels like. Of having such as you say, an important job is that you feel like you have a great responsibility that you've got to work hard and do your best because your job ultimately is to preserve the health and the safety and the wellbeing of the American people and indirectly for everyone in the world, because the United States is such an important country when it comes to global health.

Owen: Hi, my name is Owen and I’m 8 years old. And are you excited about working with President-elect Biden?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: I'm very excited and looking forward to working with President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, and that's actually going to happen pretty soon. It's going to be happening. In a little bit over a month.

Edwin: I'm Edwin, I'm 10 years old and I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana. I'd like to know if everyone stayed home for two weeks, would COVID go away?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, if everyone stayed home for two weeks, it likely would decrease COVID. But I don't think two weeks is enough to have COVID just disappear because right now it's very, very prevalent in the United States.

[00:06:27] The numbers are really disturbing. If you look at the numbers, there have been between 200 and 300,000 new cases each day. So it's going to take more than just two weeks of shutting down. I don't think we need to completely shut down, but I do think we need to make sure that we uniformly abide by the public health measures of uniformly wearing masks of avoiding close contact of avoiding crowds and congregate settings, particularly indoors, except when you're with family. That's okay, but you don't want to have big parties and social gatherings right now. You want to keep things as minimal as possible for that. Until the level of infection gets much lower.

Summer: Hi, Dr. Fauci, my name is Summer. I'm 14 and I'm from Alpharetta, Georgia. Today's my first day of quarantine, since someone in my class was exposed to Corona. Even though I wear my mask throughout the day,  do you still think there's a possibility of me getting Corona?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, if you or your mask faithfully every day, the chances of your getting Corona, because you were exposed to someone, is low. So I wouldn't worry about it. It is low, but it is not zero. And that's the reason why you have to quarantine. But if you were in the classroom and were faithfully wearing your mask and washing your hands frequently, the way you're supposed to be doing, I think the risk for you is low, that you shouldn't be worried.

[00:08:07] But you do need to continue to quarantine.

Olivia: My name is Olivia. I am seven years old and I live in Vorhees, New Jersey. Is it better to clean your hands with bar soap, liquid soap or hand sanitizer, or are they all the same?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: They're really about all the same. If you wash your hands with soap and water,  you should at least do it for at least 20 seconds. You know, you [00:17:00] just don't want to just go through, you want to keep doing that. If you get those Purell, this alcohol thing, you know, you just sort of need to squirt on and just do it enough so that it dries up, which it takes, you know, maybe 10 seconds or so when you're, and you're good, but they're all about the same in their effectiveness.

Shane: Hi, my name is Shane and I am eight years old from Morristown, New Jersey. I’d like to add Dr. Fauci, can pets carry coronavirus?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: You know, there is individual rare instances of cats and other domestic animals being able to carry coronavirus, but there's no indication that that is a significant or even a real danger of spreading infection. So one of the things we don't want to do is to have children be worried that their pets are going to be dangerous to them.

[00:09:32] So I know that when you read about one or two cases of a dog or a cat, having the infection, that's something that we've not seen being uh, actually, I wouldn't say an important, not even, uh, a source of infection, so don't worry about it. You can give you a pet, a big hug.

Nola: Hi, Dr. Fauci. My name is NOLA. I'm 11 years old and I live in San Francisco, California. I was wondering, are you a dog or cat person?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Dog all the way.

Ariana: Hello, my name's Ariana and I'm nine years old. And my question is when the COVID vaccines out, when are kids gonna get the vaccine?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: One of the things that we're very careful with when we do vaccines is to make sure that we're absolutely certain about the safety of a vaccine in what we call vulnerable populations, and two of the most important vulnerable populations, namely, we want to take extra special care of you - that's what vulnerable means -  are children and pregnant women. So when you do a vaccine trial and you show that it's safe and effective, you usually wait a couple of months until it's very clear that the vaccine is going to be efficacious.

[00:10:56] And it's very clear that in adults, in normal adults, it's very safe. Then you could start doing a Phase One or Phase Two A trial, which means the trial doesn't have to be very large, like tens and tens of thousands of people. It could be a couple of thousand people and you do that in children, and you can also do that in pregnant women. And when you do that, you can then use that data to ultimately get the vaccine because of the safety and the fact that it induces a response, very similar to the protective response in an adult, that after a few months you can approve it for use in children. So even though the vaccine will be approved for adults, I think a few months from now, then children would likely be able to get vaccinated, but it will be a several month delay before we get them the vaccine.

Harper: Hi, I'm Harper and I'm eight years old from California. If I have an allergy, will I still be able to get the COVID vaccine?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Right now in the rolling out of the vaccines, both in the UK and in the United States, they have been incidences of people who have a tendency for an allergic reaction to get an allergic reaction to the vaccine. That doesn't mean that if you have a history of an allergic reaction, you can't get vaccinated. It means that you're extra special care, so that when you go to get vaccinated, it is in a place where if you do get an allergic reaction, you have somebody there that knows how to treat it.

Siyana: Hi, this is Siyana. I’m twelve years old and I’m from Morristown, New Jersey. If I already got COVID and I'm feeling better from it, then do I have to get the COVID vaccine? Thank you.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Good question. And the answer was yes. And the reason the answer was yes, is that we don't know how long following infection you are protected against reinfection. So just to make doubly certain that you are protected, that even if you've been infected with COVID-19 or the SARS  Coronavirus, 2. That you should actually get a vaccine just to be doubly sure.

Clio: My name is Clio. I do not like shots.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, I don't think anybody really likes shots, but I've gotten a lot of shots in my day. And I can tell you that at the worst, it's a little pinch. Um, so you'll see when you get vaccinated. That you're going to say the following. Wow. That wasn't that bad. That's what most children say after they get a shot.

Sacha: Hi, my name is Sacha. I'm 11 years old and I live in Florida. How long until everyone has the vaccine and things will go back to normal?  And when can I have sleepovers again?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, it depends on how many people decide they want to get vaccinated. And that's the reason why we're encouraging everyone to get vaccinated. From a purely logistic point, namely how long it actually takes to get people vaccinated. We have 330 plus million people in the United States. So in order to get a substantial proportion of the people vaccinated, even if we do it very efficiently, it's going to take several months that we get the overwhelming majority of people vaccinated. And then once that happens, then I believe we can think in terms of getting people together and sleepovers and things like that.

Vedant: Hello, I'm Vedant and my question is, will we stay immune for life after we get vaccinated or what we have to get it multiple times?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: That's a very good question. We don't know exactly how long. I mean, that's the honest answer. We hope it's long enough to get us through a couple of cycles, but it is conceivable that we may need to get booster shots. So I don't think anybody can say we know how long we're going to be protected. We'll just have to wait and see.

Rohan: Hi Dr. Fauci, my name is Rohan and I'm 10 years old. I have one question for you. What was it like to throw the first pitch at the Nationals game?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Well, that It was very exciting because I'm a really big baseball fan and I love the Washington Nationals who, by the way, as you know, not this past year, but the year before won the World Series. So I was really excited. Unfortunately, it was an errant pitch. I wound up through it all in my mind and it went off somewhere into the wilderness. [00:15:00] It didn't reach the catcher who was waiting there to catch it. It was Sean Doolittle, who's the closing pitcher for the Nationals. Didn't quite get it to Sean. Unfortunately.

Maggie: Hi, my name is Maggie. I'm 11 years old and I'm from San Francisco, California. One of my questions is, do you have kids?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: I do! I have three daughters? And, they are old enough, they're adults now. Uh, and they live in three separate parts of the country. One of them lives in San Francisco. She works actually in one of the tech companies. Uh, my middle daughter is in New Orleans and she's a school teacher. She teaches children in the third grade, math, science, and my oldest daughter is a clinical psychologist in Boston. So they're scattered throughout the country. Unfortunately, because of the fact that we're discouraging travel. I haven't seen them for awhile.

Emersson:  Hi, I'm Emersson. I'm nine years old and I live in San Jose, California, but I'm really from Brooklyn. Just like you. What's your favorite place in Brooklyn?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: My favorite place in Brooklyn. Well, my favorite place in Brooklyn is where I used to go. When I was a child in the summer, a place called Coney Island, which is a great place. They got an amusement park. They got a great beach. They have Nathan's hotdog stand, which is the greatest hotdogs in the world. That's what I like about Brooklyn.

Emersson:  I'd also like to know if kids can spread COVID to adults.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: Yes, they can. They don't generally do it efficiently. It's noticeable that older children tend to 19 can spread it much more efficiently than younger children.

Bethany Van Delft: Hey, it's Bethany. Dr. Fauci what overall message would you like to share with kids about this pandemic?

Dr. Anthony Fauci: I think children have unfortunately gone through a very difficult period of time since. January and February, we have been under great stress in this country. So since children are so young and one year [00:18:00] relatively speaking can be a reasonably large proportion of your life when you're six and seven and eight years old.

[00:18:09] So don't get discouraged. Things are going to get better. They're going to be back to normal. You're going to be able to play with your friends. You're going to be able to go to school without worrying about it. You're going to be able to have parties and have fun. Is this will end. I promise you, we will get back to normal. It may be several more months, but we will get back to normal. So don't get discouraged. That's my message.

Bethany Van Delft: That's some great information. So to recap, we heard about the amazing team of diverse people behind developing the vaccine. We learned that we may need to take the vaccine more than once, depending on what research shows about how long immunity lasts. And we got an understanding of how scientists make sure the vaccine is safe for kids, which may mean you'll have to wait a few extra months to get it. But remember what Dr. Fauci [00:19:00] said. Don't get discouraged. We will get through this a big, huge thank you to Dr. Fauci for spending time with us. And thanks to all the Ten’ers who submitted questions.

If you want to be part of future episodes, check out The Ten News.com backslash Share. That's where you can share story ideas and maybe be featured in a future episode and follow us on social so the next time we have a town hall, you can submit your questions.

Bethany Van Delft: It is time for our trivia question of the day way before he became a leading infectious disease expert. Dr. Fauci was a leader in school. Which of the following teams was he captain of in high school?

 Was it a) the basketball team b) the baseball team or c) the debate team? Do you know the answer?

[00:20:00] [00:20:00] Let's let Dr. Fauci tell you himself.

Dr. Anthony Fauci: I was the captain of my high school basketball team. And it was one of the most fun things I've ever done because playing basketball in New York City, which is a big basketball town, when it comes to high school, was very challenging and very exciting. And I have memories of that, that I'll never forget.

[00:20:22] Some of the most fun times ever, was playing basketball in New York City.

Bethany Van Delft: Allie, oop, Dr. Fauci.

[00:20:36] And that's a wrap. Time's up. That's the end of the time for it today, but you can catch new episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The Ten News is co-production of Small, But Mighty Media in collaboration with Next Chapter Podcasts and distributed by iHeartRadio. The Ten News writing team is led by Editorial Director Tracey Crooks with contributions from Steven Tompkins. The creative producer is Jenner Pascua. Marketing is led by Jacob Bronstein with social media and web support by Steven Tompkins and Adam Pharr. Editing and sound design by Pete Musto under the production direction of Jeremiah Tittle. Executive Producer Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan round out the team. If you have any questions about the show, a story idea, or a fun fact you just want to share, email us at hello@thetennews.com. And as always, don't forget to subscribe, rate and review The Ten News on Apple podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts, it really helps.

[00:21:43] I am Bethany Van Delft. And thanks for listening to The Ten News. Now go have a safe and happy winter break and listen to Dr. Fauci. He's a baller. Okay.