Fauci Resists Republican Conservatives Aiming To Turn His Testimony Into Protests On Racial Injustice

America's leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci held out against Republicans who attempted to turn his testimony about containing the coronavirus pandemic into an admonishment of protests against racial injustice.

According to a report, Fauci had once again became the target of those pushing to see economies fully reopened in the U.S. Ohio Republican Jim Jordan questioned Fauci's stand on whether or not he agrees that protests should be limited around the country to prevent the further spread of the coronavirus.

Fauci said that he was not in a position to be making a recommendation on the matter about protests. Jordan sharply countered this, and said, “You make all kinds of recommendations. You make comments on dating, on baseball and everything you could imagine.”

The disease expert replied that he was not about raising opinions on curbing anything, but that he was only concerned about the dangers of being in crowds and emphasized his main point on social distancing and how one should "stay away from crowds.”

Fauci's call for such measures comes from last month's record-breaking coronavirus deaths that had risen by 25,000 and doubling infections in the country's 18 states.

In July, the U.S. had registered at least 1.8 million new COVID-19 infections out of its total 4.5 million confirmed cases. This translates to a rough 66% increase in infections which is still yet to be finalized as many states are yet to report on their final COVID-19 numbers. And, in terms of deaths, a surge of at least 19% contributed to the total COVID-19 fatalities which are at least 152,000.

Fauci pinpointed in March that testing efforts in the U.S. have been failing. On Friday's hearing, he was questioned about his opinion on the current state of those efforts with people more directly involved with that effort as witnesses.

Questions about whether or not the Trump administration had a unified national strategy to counter the pandemic were also raised at the start of the hearing.

Democratic Representative James Clyburn said that deaths could have been prevented if only the administration had a different approach in facing the pandemic.

This was rebuked by top Republican Steve Scalise who took Clyburn's comments as political posturing and said that the Trump administration has been effective in its COVID-19 response in many areas such as schools, employers, nursing homes and vaccine development.

Meanwhile, Trump had taken his observations on the proceedings to Twitter and said that instead of being praised, the country's massive testing capability and how they have been "quickly done" had only been frowned upon.