“It's the advantage of the virus to spread, and you can only spread when you infect people and they infect other people without necessarily killing them. So if you had 100 percent mortality, the potential pandemic would almost self-eliminate itself.”

American physician-scientist and immunologist

Anthony Fauci is an American physician-scientist and immunologist. He led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from 1984 to 2022, and served as Chief Medical Advisor to the President from 2021 to 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. He became widely known for his long public role in infectious disease and public health, especially through decades at NIAID and later as a senior voice during the pandemic. He was also among the most frequently cited scientists in the world across scientific journals from 1983 to 2002.