Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with Vice President Mike Pence behind him, speaks during a briefing about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, Sunday, March 15, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has become something of the face of the Trump administration for addressing scientific questions about the Wuhan coronavirus.

He’s been busy trying to inform the public which is sometimes challenging with a new disease that you don’t know everything about.

The thing on everyone’s mind? When is all the virus madness going to be over?

While he can’t give us definitives he can make some general statements based on the available evidence.

According to the New York Post, Fauci was asked about Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s comment that the outbreak might hit its peak in 45 days or about May 1. Fauci said, “It’s possible.” But he said that he didn’t want to give a definitive time and be locked into it. He said that “45 days is not unreasonable.” But he was careful not to commit to that number. “When you get a number, you own the number,” he said. “If the number does not come out then you are in trouble.”

Fauci also explained he expected to see a gradual decline in cases because of all the efforts being made to blunt the virus. He said that that he’s never seen such a response where there was this kind of a mobilization and said he thought we might see a “hump” more than a “peak.”

From Washington Examiner:

I mean, of all the outbreaks that I have been involved with over the last at least 36 years and then going historically back, we’ve never had a situation where the mobilization of all the different components, travel restrictions, internal containment, mitigation, financial assistance, public health assistance, testing.

But Fauci is not just explaining the likely nature of the illness, he’s also out trying to get people to pay attention to the advice to help “flatten the curve” in accordance with President Donald Trump’s guidance “15 Days to slow the spread.” which details the steps that people can take to limit transmission of the virus.

The office of Vice President even booked Fauci to speak on Barstool Sports’ “Pardon My Take” with PFT Commenter and Don “Big Cat” Katz in order to reach out to younger “healthy” folks to get them on board with the effort, to realize that even if there was a smaller probability that it might affect them seriously than those who were elderly or with serious pre-existing conditions, they had a role to play in not spreading it.

According to the New York Post, a spokesman for the VP’s Task Force, Devin O’Malley said in an email to the show:

“While the disease overwhelmingly affects the elderly and those with serious underlying health conditions, it is critical that young Americans understand that their actions not only impact them and their immediate peer groups, but also their loved ones.

“This is an incredibly important demographic to talk to at this exact moment, and PMT has incredible reach, hundreds of thousands if not more listeners per episode, so it seemed like a natural fit.”

Fauci explained some important things for them to understand and adhere to.

“One thing we do know is that this virus really likes to spread in crowded places, the efficiency of spread is amplified when there is a lot of person-to-person contact, so one of the real weapons you have to try and contain the virus is physically separate people as inconvenient as that is, you have to do at least for awhile to try and stay ahead of the viral spread,” Dr. Fauci told PFT Commenter and Big Cat.

PFT Commenter responded, “I feel like I know my generation pretty well. This could be the challenge that we’ve been really been asked to take on: Just staying at home. We stay at home harder than any generation that has come before us. I think we are the right ones that meant to be put in that place at this point in history.”

It’s really a fascinating and informative interview, everything from explaining how it jumped from an animal to people to explaining how the Chinese denied that there was human-to-human transmission as we have previously reported. He explained how they did no mitigation and had at the time huge block parties that spread it virulently, then everyone traveled all over the world. He also talks more about things like how long this might last. Worth the watch.