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Fauci Expresses Regret Over Early Days Of Pandemic Messaging

“It is really unfortunate, that that’s the world in which we live, in that it’s a bunch of sound bites, sound bites that sometimes get cut in half and get misinterpreted," infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said Tuesday at a California seminar.

Chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said he should have been “much more careful” in his messaging on COVID-19 early on in the pandemic, including doing a better job of conveying the uncertainty present at that time. ... Fauci bemoaned that the only remarks that were “thrown back” at him from that time were his recommendations that things did not have to change. (Choi, 10/4)

NIAID director Anthony Fauci said Tuesday that "we should not be surprised" if a new COVID-19 variant emerges this winter. (Doherty and Habeshian, 10/4)

More on the spread of covid —

Republican voters have experienced a higher rate of excess deaths since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research. In an analysis of data on “excess deaths” in Ohio and Florida since January 2018, Yale University researchers found a sharp divergence between political party affiliation shortly after the first year of the pandemic. (Vaziri, 10/4)

The oral antiviral drug Paxlovid is safe and effective for treating COVID-19 and carries no additional risk of viral rebound beyond other treatments, according to a meta-analysis published late last week in the Journal of Infection. (10/3)

“The goal of AB2098 is to chill speech — in particular the speech of doctors who make a different assessment of the available evidence than the state of California,” attorneys from two conservative nonprofit organizations said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in Los Angeles on behalf of doctors seeking to declare the law unconstitutional. (Egelko, 10/4)

Federal prosecutors accused a San Francisco father and son on Tuesday of defrauding investors out of millions of dollars with fabricated business promotions — including a claim that their company had designed apparel equipped with a device that could detect whether the wearer was infected with COVID-19. (Egelko, 10/4)

In related news about global health —

President Joe Biden intends to nominate Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to be the U.S. representative on the World Health Organization's executive board, administration officials told Reuters on Tuesday. Murthy has served as the top U.S. doctor under Biden and under former President Barack Obama. He will continue in that role while taking on the WHO position, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate. (Mason, 10/4)

This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.