Dr. Anthony Fauci talks HIV, COVID-19 during Bay Area book tour for his new memoir
The former head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases was in San Francisco Tuesday promoting his new book "On Call."
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases, was in San Francisco Tuesday promoting his new book "On Call."
Dr. Fauci spoke with a crowd of more than 100 at Manny's in the Mission District about his work on HIV, to then his work on the COVID-19 pandemic.
I remember it like it was yesterday," Dr. Fauci said when talking about the moment he learned about HIV. "A MMWR landed on my desk from the CDC which was a case of 5 curiously all otherwise healthy young gay men from LA with a very strange pneumonia, pneumocystis pneumonia."
He first thought it was just an anomaly, but soon more MMWR's came to him with more cases. He spent years working with nation leaders on ways to develop drugs, treatment and ways to limit the spread.
MORE: Dr. Fauci says he plans to retire by end of President Biden's current term
Following the discussion on HIV, he began discussing the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I found out about it on the first of January of 2020," he said. "A reporter called me up and said there is something strange going on in china have you heard about it? All of a sudden the phones started ringing and CDC and HHS were on the phone."
When he was discussing the pandemic, he said mostly worked well with President Donald Trump, but things changed the closer it got to election day. Dr. Fauci says the work done on HIV led to the development of the COVID vaccine.
"The team that was working on an HIV vaccine were the ones that developed the critical immunogen for the success of the COVID vaccine," he said.
Dr. Fauci has a second event at Dominican University where he will be part of a discussion with former California Senator Barbara Boxer.
