Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Fauci says 32-year-old brother of daughter’s boyfriend has died of Covid

Dr Fauci gave the example of how the virus is impacting people irrespective of age and healthy lifestyle 

Shweta Sharma
Friday 11 December 2020 07:20 GMT
Comments
Fauci has three daughters with his wife Christine Grady – Jennifer 34, Megan, 31, and Alison, 28. 
Fauci has three daughters with his wife Christine Grady – Jennifer 34, Megan, 31, and Alison, 28.  ((AFP via Getty Images))
Leer en Español

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has revealed that the brother of his daughter Alison’s boyfriend has died of coronavirus despite being young and healthy.

The nation’s leading vaccine expert on Wednesday said his daughter is “saddened greatly" with the loss when asked if Covid has impacted anyone in his life.

“The answer is yes, but one in particular, my youngest daughter’s boyfriend’s brother is a 32-year-old young man, athletic, healthy, who got COVID-19 and had one of the unusual complications of cardiomyopathy with an arrhythmia and died,” Dr Fauci said.

Dr Fauci gave the example of how the virus is impacting people irrespective of age and healthy lifestyle as US hospitals are getting overwhelmed with a huge number of Covid-infected people getting hospitalized.

'You don't want to overwhelm the general public, but you want them to at least understand that you're dealing with real suffering, and real disease, and real loss in the form of death of loved ones ... there has to be motivation enough for at least most of the people to adhere to the public health issues and public health recommendations that we make,' Dr Fauci added.  

Data released by the US Department of Health and Human Services shows around 200 hospitals were at full capacity last week and ICU beds are occupied in more than one-third of all hospitals.Dr Fauci made the comments during an interview hosted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and moderated by CNN’s Sanjay Gupta.

The comments came as the US continues to hit grim milestones with each passing day. On Wednesday, a record of 3,124 single-day deaths due to Covid were recorded for the first time — more than the death toll from the 9/11 attacks.

On Thursday, over 200,000 new infections were reported, adding to the total tally of 14million cases.  

He also said that he would take the vaccine himself once it is approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

'I think the authority should be the United States Food and Drug Administration,' he said.

Meanwhile, an expert committee formed by the US Food and Drug Administration has green signalled Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine for emergency use approval on Thursday. The vaccine was voted with the majority in favour. 

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in