Anthony Fauci wants to put Covid’s politicization behind him

The most famous scientist in America is facing retirement.

After more than five decades of federal service under seven presidents, Anthony Fauci says he’s leaving by the end of President Joe Biden’s term. In a wide-ranging interview with POLITICO, he spoke of his legacy, the hard truths about the country’s pandemic response and his desire to calm the politicization wracking the country.

“We’re in a pattern now. If somebody says, ‘You’ll leave when we don’t have Covid anymore,’ then I will be 105. I think we’re going to be living with this,” Biden’s chief medical adviser said when asked whether he is staying in his role out of a sense of obligation.

He’s not. But his assessment, that we’ll live with Covid-19 for many years to come, is a startling admission from the longtime infectious disease expert who said the country could flatten the curve and achieve herd immunity, first through social distancing and then vaccination.

The ever-mutating, highly contagious coronavirus, which no country has conquered, upended those plans. With his career winding down, Fauci wants to help repair the national bonds that the pandemic shredded, and tamp down the partisan polarization that has turned him, and science itself, into a lightning rod. He’s even finding his commonalities with former President Donald Trump, his nemesis in the pandemic’s first year.