Coronavirus live news: Dr Fauci says he hasn’t spoken to Trump in two weeks as P…

Here is more on those comments from Dr. Anthony Fauci earlier:

Anthony Fauci, the government’s top public health expert and Covid-19 task force member, said he was no longer in frequent contact with the president.

Asked whether the president talks to him often about Covid vaccine work, he told a reporter with Stat News, “No … As you probably noticed, that the task force meetings have not occurred as often lately. And certainly my meetings with the president have been dramatically decreased.”

Fauci noted that they used to have task force meetings daily, including on the weekend, and said that frequently, the two would talk after the meeting, estimating that a month ago, they met four times a week.

Fauci, the director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also told a CNN reporter that he has not spoken or met with Trump in two weeks and that their last interaction was 18 May, during a teleconference with the nation’s governors.

The comments from Fauci come as states across the US have continued to reopen and end lockdowns, even as reports of new Covid-19 cases and deaths continue. Last week, the US recorded

In his STAT interview, Fauci said he understood the desire to reopen states as quickly as possible: “I certainly have sensitivity for the need of the public to start getting to some form of normalization.” But he said he was still concerned about the pace of the reopening:

When I see a situation where there is a region, a state, a city, a county where there’s a considerable amount of viral activity there, and you see people crowding around bars — and there were several pictures of that, that was quite striking over the last couple of days — or on boardwalks, where they’re very, very close to each other, I do get concerned.

He said he was not concerned about the 12-18 month vaccine timetable, but added, “There’s no guarantee that it’s going to be effective.

In May during Senate testimony, Fauci also expressed concerns about the potential for ongoing outbreaks: “There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you might not be able to control. Not only leading to some suffering and death, but it could even set you back on the road to get economic recovery.”