Dr. Fauci Talks Basketball & COVID-19 w/ Stephen Curry | State of Inspiration w/ Stephen Curry

I've seen a picture of you in a nice basketball jersey with your squad.

It was a different style of basketball.

Well, we are back. Thank you, Dr. Fauci, for taking time out of your busy schedule to have another conversation. I really enjoyed the first one on IG, and, you know, reality was a little different back in March, you know, early April, where we were still figuring out a lot about what the pandemic meant. And wanted to get an update, obviously, in terms of where your perspective is and what we need to be focused on and doing as a collective going forward. So I appreciate the time, appreciate you sitting down. Good to be with you. Absolutely. But I wanted to first quickly, a little bit more lighthearted, connect our worlds a little bit more. I've seen a picture of you in a nice basketball jersey with your squad, and I think there's a nice reputation of what your basketball prowess was back in the day, even to the point of being, or hearing the nickname, America's point guard by no less than Stephen Curry. Coach K out of Duke. I've played with— for Coach K twice during the Team USA World Championships and got a couple gold medals. So now he's giving you the America's Point Guard tag. You got to give us a scouting report on what your game was like. What was your jumper like? What was your, uh, what was your strengths out there on the court?

You know, Steph, it was a different style of basketball because it was a long time ago. When I tell you how long ago it was, you're going to look at me and say My God, you're still able to speak and stand. I was in high school in my senior year, it was 1958. And that was a time when it was a lot of fast breaking, picking and rolling, but very few jump shooting. It was a time that's a shot that no longer taken right now. You'd work it, or first of all, you'd try to fast break all the time. So I'm short, I'm 5'7", or I was 5'7" then. I'm probably shorter now as I shrunk a little. Yeah, but the thing is, it was always a fast-running game, and being a fast person who knew how to drive, was a good ball handler, I could play a good game. When you finally got and they stopped you at half court, you would pull back on an offensive, working around and weaving, and often you would set up for what was called a two-handed set shot, when that was very, very commonly done. And that was my shot. I was pretty good at what would be well beyond the 3-point line now, where you would throw up a two-handed set shot. But the kind of jump shots that you guys put up now, very few people were doing that back then. It was not that kind of game.

I know about Kenny Sailors and his, uh, the way he, uh, he kind of changed what a jump shot actually was, but—

Exactly, exactly. Yeah, yeah. We were starting to see some of that when, in my senior year, when a couple of people who were playing high school ball against me A few of them whose names you probably won't remember, but Donnie Walsh and York Lorisi, who went to UNC, who really brought the jump shot into its own game. And very few of us did it, but, you know, that was then and this is now.

I know being a part of, obviously, basketball and team sports, for me, has taught me a lot about myself and life. That is my world. But for you, I was interested to know if sports taught you anything about yourself and life that you've carried with you into your professional career?

It has played a major influence, Steph, no doubt, in so many ways. I mean, everything from the fact that as good as you might be or think you are, the fact is you're part of a team, you know, and if you can shine but you don't get a good result and win the game, it's almost like, you know, being a hotshot investigator but you never do anything that's really worthwhile because you don't do it in a collaborative way. So teamwork's certainly a big one. The other one is, you know, the idea of not getting discouraged, because in science and in medicine, since you're dealing with a lot of sick people and you're trying to make discoveries that more often don't work out the way you would like them to work out, you've got to be able to keep your game up even when it looks like you're failing. And I often make the analogy between games that I played in school, when, you know, it's the 4th quarter, you have like 6 minutes left and you're 8 points down. You gotta do it. That's not a good place to be in, but if you get your game up, you can pull it through. And those are the kind of things that you learn. You know, you just don't ever give up, particularly when you're in sight there. And you make mistakes. It's not the only time that I've dribbled down on a really important play, try to fake a guy out and wound up traveling. The whistleblower. And you give the ball up. That's not so good when you're trying to catch up from behind. So those kind of lessons have stayed with me throughout the years.

I've seen you give amazing keynote speeches and be able to present data, direction, initiative, and when the lights are bright. As a multi-sport athlete, what happened with the first pitch at the Nationals game? I just gotta ask.

Um.

Steph, you know— I gotta poke a little bit. I gotta poke a little bit.

Steph, I deserve it. I try to, you know, try to make the perfect be the enemy of the good. So I was practicing like crazy throwing it. And, you know, I wound up giving myself a sore arm. And that wasn't the excuse. What I did stupidly is that when I was throwing, I thought I measured out 60 feet, which is the mound thing. I probably was at maybe 45 feet.

And that's all the difference.

I played ball as a kid, so I know what 60 feet is, but now as an older guy, I blew it. So when I walked out to the mound and I looked at Sean Doolittle, he looked like he was about 100 yards away. So what I did, instead of just going, throwing it, I did like, ram, and it threw like a ground ball between first and home.

I know you probably wanna get it back. You'll probably get another opportunity to redeem yourself, so. I appreciate that kind of background in sports, but kind of along the lines of what sports teaches you when you said teamwork and being able to not get down when things are rough, it obviously develops character. And I think in your position of leadership, especially being in the seat that you are with the responsibility that you have in terms of people's well-being and their health and safety, curious just in how you approach that responsibility in terms of your moral character and how that guides you with tough calls, whether you got the decision right or not, leading a group of people that all are obviously like-minded, being positive and integrity and being trustworthy and open and honest. How do you approach that responsibility with the things that are on your plate, especially during a pandemic like this?

Well, that's a great question, Stephen, and particularly in the field that I am in, which is public health and the health of the nation and the world, but it's also science. So the decisions you make, the directions that you recommend, and you have to take that very seriously because if you're in a position of leadership and what you say and what you do really is going to have an impact, you know, not on money, not on that, on fame, but on the lives of individuals. So you got to take what you do very seriously and everything you do. You don't take yourself seriously. You take your responsibility seriously. And one of the things you have to do is you need to be open, honest, and consistent, and always tell it like it is. So that if you don't know the answer to a question in science, you've got to be humble enough to say, "I don't know, and I'll try and find out." And if you do know the answer, You've got to get the answer that's based on solid scientific data. You don't want to be winging things. You don't want to be guessing. You've got to be driven by the science, articulate it, and lead by example. That's what I try to do, and I've tried to do that for the entire almost 4 decades that I've been the director of this institute. Once you make it clear that you're honest, you're open, you're consistent, then people will respect you and will listen to what you have to say, and your messages could be life-saving.

On that note, I kind of want to hype you up a little bit. From Time magazine's Most Influential People, there's an article written by Jimmy Kimmel, how you've approached your job and the impression that you've had on so many people. I just want to read this little quote and ask you a follow-up, but, "Dr. Fauci doesn't sugarcoat his words and refuses to be pressured by politicians." He delivers the truth, as difficult as it may be to hear, earnestly and with one goal: to save lives. His courage and candor have earned our trust, and we're all fortunate to have a man of his wisdom, experience, and integrity to help us navigate these difficult waters. And so you've obviously, like you said, been around for a while. You've worked with 6 presidents in their presidencies, and you've dealt with so many different pandemics and situations that have affected the mass community. What has encouraged you to be truthful with— Thank you. Not only people that, you know, look up to you in terms of, you know, from a leadership perspective, but how you present yourself to the nation, to the world when dealing with giving direction and knowing that you're always trying to help people in their time of need.

You've gotta always be speaking the truth and not be telling people what they want to hear. One of the things that you have to learn, because it's tempting to go to the other side, particularly when you're dealing with very powerful people, including the president of the United States. As you said correctly, I've had the privilege, because of the amount of time that I've been doing this, of advising and dealing with 6 administrations, 6 separate presidents who have very different ideology, very different political persuasions. And I've gotten along very well with each of them, and I've developed a good working relationship with each of them because I tell it like it is. One can sometimes be tempted, if you get impressed by the awe and the magnificence of high places— the White House, the Congress, being in the public eye— to tell people things that they want to hear and be afraid to deliver sobering news that isn't always the great news. Once you fall into the trap of telling people things they want to hear, one, you can be misleading, and two, ultimately, people will lose respect for you. So what I've tried to do is say, tell it like it is. If people don't like it and they don't want me around anymore, So be it. But I'm not gonna compromise my integrity or my habit and mode of operating of telling the truth in a clear, articulate, consistent way. That's the only way to do it, Steph, because if you veer from that, you're hurting yourself and you're hurting society.

When you do kind of put your foot down on either side of the conversation based on the science, the research, the data, You know you're not gonna please, you know, everybody in the masses, but you have to do your best to present the facts, deal with the fallout of what that means in terms of the direction of the country or the world. And I know a lot of people appreciate your consistency with that. Thank you for that. And understanding how we have the best chance possible to get through, you know, this pandemic, ones of the past and ones of the future, the best way possible. So thank you so much for being an example for what that looks like.

Thank you.

Has there ever been a specific example or, one that you could share where your job was challenged the most throughout the years?

You go way back, Steph, to the early days of HIV when I began getting involved in this in the early '80s. There were some people who were denying that HIV was the cause of AIDS. We called them HIV denialists, and they were very dangerous because if they convinced people that there's no such a thing as HIV, then people would not protect themselves against it, or if they were infected, they wouldn't take their medications. So those crazy people back then would impugn me and challenge my integrity and say I'm lying and saying there's this virus called HIV that's hurting people when it doesn't exist. I mean, I mean, it was so clear that they were off the wall, completely nuts. Yeah. But nonetheless, they were publicly challenging me. Right now is probably the worst I've seen in a group of people, the dark web or the crazy extremists, who don't believe anything we say about public health and say this is a hoax and we're trying to fool people because we want to shut down the government. And they continually— Not the government, but the CDC. The country, and they want to really essentially say I'm a fraud. I've never— I mean, anybody who knows what I do would never say that. But when you have people who are so extreme that they not only attack my integrity, but they really threaten to physically attack me and my family, which is really bizarre that people are so stringent in their disagreement with something that's a simple as a public health message that they not only call you a liar and a fraud, but they want to physically attack you and harass your family. I've never quite seen that before, Steph, but it's happening right now, which is really weird.

Yeah, I mean, I know that's a reflection of, obviously, the social media era and how, you know, small the world is, and sometimes those conspiracies or those disbeliefs about reality are weaponized in a way that we've obviously never seen before. How do you, like, mentally get excited about what you're doing knowing that that opposition is coming full-fledged every single day? How do you kind of level the playing field in terms of having a productive conversation in most of the rooms that you go into or the convers— the seats at the table that you have? You're always trying to move in the right direction, but you're fully aware of the chaos that's around our society right now.

Well, what I do, Steph, is I compartmentalize. I don't focus on the attacks. They are merely distractions. If you let it influence you, you've essentially let those people win. Focus on the importance of the problem that you're dealing with. So when I wake up in the morning and I look at what I need to do— and it isn't only me, I'm part of a large group of devoted people addressing this terrible pandemic— I don't think about the crazies that are attacking me. What I think about is the seriousness of the problem. The fact that we have 200,000 deaths so far in this country, that we have close to 7 million infections, that we have a great, great disparity of African Americans and Latinx who suffer disproportionately, much greater than the rest of the population, both for the risk of infection and for the complications they get through no fault of their own, but because of the social determinants of health that put them at risk. So those are the things when I wake up in the morning and say, "What do I have to do?" Those are the things I focus on. I don't focus on people throwing slings and arrows at me. I don't really care about that.

I credit you for that. Being on that stage every single day, I can— I know the support system that you have around you the most meaningful things. So what are the high points that we got right and wrong from your perspective?

Well, the things that were gotten right, I think, was the decision to block off travel into the country from countries that were really hot, like China and certain parts of Europe, particularly Northern Europe and in Italy, but then ultimately all of Europe, to prevent the influx. So that was an important thing. The thing that is so disturbing right now, we've— we have the most deaths and the most cases of any country. We're a powerful country and we're a rich country. And the situation we're in right now with 200,000 deaths and around 7 million infections, we've got to do better than that. I tend to look ahead and say, you know, whatever it was, the some things we did right and some things we did wrong, But right now we have 40,000 new infections as our baseline. That's an unacceptably high baseline, Steph, and that's particularly relevant because as we go into the fall and the winter season, when you're dealing with a respiratory-borne virus, that it is always better to be outdoors versus indoors. But when the weather changes in the vast overwhelming majority of our country, we're gonna be spending more time indoors, which is gonna make it much more problematic to prevent the spread and the acquisition of a respiratory-borne virus like SARS coronavirus 2. Because right now, the simple public health measures— you wear a mask, you keep a physical distance, you avoid crowds, and you do things in— outdoors more than indoors, and wash your hands as often as you can. You want to go into the fall and the winter in the best possible position. You don't want to go in where you have 40,000 cases a day as the community spread level. You want the community spread level to be very low so that you could deal with little surges. You want to go in with your best game as you go into the winter. You know, we've been talking about basketball analogies. You want to go with your starting 5, your starting 6 and 7 all in really good shape, not with bad ankles and bad shoulders and bad knees. You want everybody playing at top speed. That's really what we really want as we go into the fall and the winter.

So following up on that, I know a lot of younger people probably watch this and ask the question. They feel young, they feel strong, they feel— you know, viable to take on anything. It's kind of the invincibility mindset of a lot of young people. What would you say to them in terms of where we are now and what is necessary to get back to quote-unquote normalcy? How long will that mindset need to be in place? And just how would you curb the uncertainty and the still, like, persistent fear of the unknown of how long you know, COVID will be in our lives as it is today.

I don't like to appear preachy to anyone, but I almost want to plead with the younger generation, being, you know, people 17, 18, 19, 20, into the mid to late 20s, even into the 30s. It is true that if you look at the statistics, young, healthy people like yourselves, when you get infected, it is unlikely that you would have a serious consequence, 'cause the overwhelming majority of the young people do very well, particularly if you don't have an underlying condition. So there's the natural feeling after you've been cooped up, because we've had to essentially close down so many things in society, to say, "Hey, wait a minute. If I get infected, the chances are I'm not even gonna have any symptoms. So what do I care about listening to these public health messages?" I want to have a good time. I want to go to a bar. I like crowded bars. I want to meet people. I want to congregate. That's understandable. That's even an innocent conclusion of what you want to do.

Right.

But the one thing that you need to realize, and this is what I really want to plead with that group of people, and I was one of that group, as you were too, Steph, as I am, years and years ago. And that is that even though you get no symptoms when you get infected, the fact is that you are inadvertently and innocently propagating the outbreak. Because by getting infected yourself, even without symptoms, the chances are that you're going to infect someone else, who will then infect someone else, who then will infect a vulnerable person.

Mm-hmm.

That can be someone's father or mother. That can be someone's wife who's on chemotherapy for breast cancer. That could be an immunodeficient child or an African American kid with sickle cell anemia who is highly susceptible that when they get infected, unlike you, in which the chances are you're gonna have no problem, they may have a really serious problem. Mm-hmm. So when you think about it, about you're not in a vacuum, for now you're part of a society that's depending on you to not propagate the outbreak. Because you want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Which gets to your next question, Steph, which is a very relevant question: When the heck is this all gonna end? 'Cause I can't do this indefinitely. It's driving— Me too. Me nuts. I get that. And you don't want to do it indefinitely, but you won't have to. First of all, we don't feel you're going to need to shut down anything again. But what you want to do is to hang on. Hang on with some real simple, doable, prudent public health measures of avoiding crowds, wearing masks, keeping your distance, washing your hands. Because we're gonna have a vaccine soon. You know, I don't know exactly, it's gonna be November, December, it could be earlier, but once we have a vaccine that's proven to be safe and effective— now, there's never a guarantee with a vaccine that you're gonna get it, but I feel cautiously optimistic from what I've seen that by the end of this year, the beginning of 2021, we'll have a vaccine that we can start distributing it first to the very vulnerable people, the healthcare providers, and then within a period of several months, virtually anybody who wants it. Once you get to that, then you will have a really good handle on the outbreak. So if you combine a good vaccine with adherence to public health measures, we can put this behind us. It may take well into 2021. [SPEAKING SPANISH] towards the middle to end of the year, but gradually you're going to be able to do more things that feel like normal as opposed to these constraints we have now.

And we're on the topic of vaccines, right? I think we— I mentioned that question earlier, um, in our first conversation, and that was when the research and the investment in developing a vaccine as fast as possible was just kind of starting. What have you learned over these last 6 months in terms of that process to maybe ease, you know, the majority of people's concern about the— how accelerated that process has been, how it's going to be distributed, and just an expectation of, you know, the vaccine as a whole, how it would get us over the hump to looking at, you know, where the light is at the end of the tunnel.

The big elephant in the room, Steph, is that— is the government telling us the truth, or is this gonna be a political issue to get a vaccine so that you could say you've done something good. First of all, the speed of it was because of the extraordinary technological advances that we have. Safety has not been sacrificed, nor has scientific integrity. Well, what about the decision of whether or not we tell you a vaccine is safe and effective? Are there any checkpoints to that? Is anybody looking over that to make sure nobody's trying to put something over on you? Well, in the process of vaccine development, there are independent groups, and the one that's important is called a Data and Safety Monitoring Board. Scientists, clinicians, vaccinologists, ethicists, community people, who are the only ones that have access to looking at the data as the clinical trials are going. So right now we have 5 clinical trials that are in advanced stages of determining whether the vaccines are safe and effective. Every once in a while, at a predetermined point, this group looks at the data. They could say, "Keep the trial going, we don't have an answer yet, you're doing well." They could look and say, "Wait a minute, there are more infections in the vaccine group than in the placebo group, you better stop this trial, this is dangerous." Or— which we hope, there are enough data to show that the so few infections in the vaccine group compared to the placebo group, let's stop the trial, give the data to the company, and let them apply to the FDA, which is our regulatory agency, to see if we can either get an emergency use authorization to distribute it essentially approve it. That then goes to an advisory committee, again, that's independent of anybody, to give advice. So there are multiple checkpoints in there. You know, it's almost— I'm trying to stick with our basketball analogy, Steph. You know, it's almost like a replay. Like, he says, "No, that was a foul." "Yes, it was a foul." "No, it wasn't." "Okay, let's take a look." at the replay and you could say, "Okay, let's get an independent group of people to take a look at that and make a decision as to what's right and wrong." That's the way it's gonna work with a vaccine.

I love that analogy 'cause I know, you know, we got the referees in Secaucus who are looking at all the monitors and you got all those safeguards, right? I'm a firm believer that sometimes they don't get it all the way right even when they go to replay, but like those safeguards will give you the best shot to put something into mass consumption that's going to be safe and, you know, effective to curb the spread and obviously put people in good shape to move into the future. Does that necessarily mean that— and this is going to be me venting a little bit about just mask use in general— I don't understand the reservations or the inability to see the effectiveness of a mask, and that doesn't really change my lifestyle at all. It's just putting on the mask, being able to to be safe and aware of where I'm going and how I'm moving through life. But as a vaccine is being implemented through, do you still see the necessity of masks being a part of our everyday to continue to address the pandemic in a real way?

Absolutely, Steph. The only time we could say you don't have to be universally wearing a mask all the time is when this infection is at such a low level it's completely irrelevant. The only way that happens is if you get a highly effective vaccine and people practice public health measures, including a mask, so that the level of infection in society is so low and most everybody is protected because most everybody gets vaccinated and it's a highly effective vaccine. Until that time occurs, and that's not gonna occur immediately, You and I should be wearing masks, we should be having distances, and we should be avoiding crowds. Once the level of infection goes way down by a combination of a good vaccine that's widely used and public health measures, we should stick to what we're talking about, about wearing a mask.

One of my last questions is around just the Black community, the communities of color across our nation. Like you mentioned before, COVID-19 is affecting at 2x, 3x, you know, the rates of other communities in our, in our country. What have you learned about what the effects have been and what can we tangibly do to slow those rates down in the Black community?

The easiest way to do it is to get brown and Black colleagues of ours into the clinical trials so that they can prove that these vaccines are safe and effective in that community so that when the vaccine gets approved, that the African American, the Latinx, and others, including Native Americans and Alaskan natives, will say, "This isn't a hoax. This is something that's real. We know it works. Let's get vaccinated." 'Cause you don't want to deprive the minority communities from a good vaccine that could be lifesaving because they're not sure that it's safe and effective in them. That's what a vaccine is. What we can do for the African American and Latinx and other communities is that we need to make a commitment now that the long-term social determinants of health that have made them more at risk for serious consequences Like, why do they have more diabetes? Why do they have more hypertension? Why do they have more obesity? It's not their fault. It's the social determinants of health that go back decades, Seth, maybe to the time that they were children and the amount— the kinds of diets they had, the socioeconomic status that didn't allow them to have the advantages that some people have. That's a commitment that we've got to measure in decades. That's not something we're going to fix tomorrow.

And that's something I obviously want to continue the conversation and the awareness of because it is an extremely urgent problem that needs to be addressed from all different angles, protecting every single community, getting resources where they need to be. Obviously, thank you for your leadership in making sure that those messages are heard loud and clear. I appreciate your time. I know I know that you are busy, that you are extremely important in terms of our response to this pandemic. And I thank you for sitting down and spending some time with me to get an update, see where we are, and continue to move in the right direction.

Thank you, Steph. As always, it's a great pleasure to be with you. Anytime. I'm always happy to do this with you.

Thanks a lot. Absolutely. I'm still gonna be gunning for— I gotta get the 2020 America's Point Guard title. I gotta keep that back. So hopefully you can pass the torch from your days.

Okay, I will. Thanks. Thanks, Steph, take care.

Yes, sir.