Biden met with Fauci more recently than Trump — and he's not even president yet

President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday asked infectious diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci to stay on to help manage the continuing coronavirus crisis in the United States as his top medical adviser.

“I asked him to stay on the exact same role he’s had for the past several presidents, and I asked him to be a chief medical adviser for me as well, and be part of the Covid team,” Biden said in an interview Thursday with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Biden has interacted with Fauci more than Donald Trump has over the last few months, even though Trump is the current commander-in-chief.

The last time Fauci and Trump spoke was in early October, when Trump was hospitalized after contracting the coronavirus himself, Newsweek reported on Nov. 10.

Since then, Trump has been holed up in the White House, where he’s spread false conspiracy theories about the election results as he fumes about his landslide loss to Biden.

Meanwhile, the coronavirus is raging in the United States.

Cases are rising at their fastest pace yet, with 216,548 new cases logged on Thursday — the highest single-day rise ever, according to New York Times data.

Even more troublesome is that another 2,857 people died of the virus on Thursday, breaking the record for the most deaths in a single day. The previous record had been set just one day earlier.

To date, 276,375 people have died from the coronavirus in the United States.

And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national ensemble forecast, which takes data from 37 models for coronavirus deaths, predicts that between 9,500 to 19,500 will die the week of Christmas.

Biden, for his part, told CNN’s Tapper that he plans to ask the country to wear masks for at least 100 days after he’s inaugurated to try and stave off more deaths, as the vaccine for the virus starts to roll out.

“Just 100 days to mask, not forever,” Biden said. “100 days. And I think we’ll see a significant reduction.”

Trump has eschewed wearing masks for the most part  — which public health experts say is one of the best ways to stop the spread of the virus before a vaccine is widely available.

He’s also held multiple superspreader events at the White House, where guests did not wear masks.

And now, as cases and deaths skyrocket, Trump is holding indoor holiday parties at the White House, where guests are again not wearing masks.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.