Tony's Diary Package — page 536

Credit: Al Drago/Getty In his more than 40-year career as an infectious-disease researcher, Anthony Fauci has been hailed as a hero and damned as a murderer. His most dedicated fans have created baseball cards and bobble-head dolls in his likeness, whereas others have issued death threats and harassed his children. As head of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland, Fauci has guided six presidents and an anxious nation through fears of bioweapon attacks and outbreaks of HIV, Ebola and Zika. Now, his role advising the government and communicating to the public during the coronavirus pandemic has made him the nation's doctor. He has offered guidance on the US response to the outbreak, often in conflict with the wishes of President Donald Trump, and he has made time to treat individuals with COVID-19 and HIV in the clinic. "Seeing the patient really gives you a different feel for what the disease is," says Fauci, who works 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic -- and the politicization of the public-health response to it -- has forced Fauci to go far beyond anything he's done before, says epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. "He has been a very key part of trying to help the public understand what the science means and what we can do about it -- and that includes, of course, our elected leaders," says Osterholm.