Where is Dr Anthony Fauci?

WASHINGTON: Despite his leading role in the US' fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, America's top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci has been sidelined by the White House, according to a media report.

Citing a senior White House official, The Washington Post report said on Sunday that Fauci "no longer briefs

(President Donald) Trump and is never in the Oval

(Office) anymore", Xinhua news agency reported.

According to The Washington Post report, Fauci has not spoken to Trump since "the first week of June".

In recent days, with coronavirus infections and death surging in most US states, Fauci, whose TV appearances were reportedly "scuttled" by the White House, has been more critical of the countr y's response to the pandemic.

In a live stream event on July 7, Fauci warned against a "false narrative" of a falling COVID-19-related death rate even as Trump continued to tout alleged progress the US had made in tackling the COVID-19 outbreak by citing a falling U.S. mortality rate.

In another inter view with The Hill news website on July 9, Fauci said that hard-hit US states should pause moving for ward with reopening their economies.

"I would think we need to get the states pausing in their opening process, looking at what did not work well and tr y to mitigate that," he said.

However, Fauci stopped short of calling for full lockdowns.

The same day in a podcast, he said that US partisanship has made the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic harder, while acknowledging the countr y has per formed poorly in the battle against the health crisis. "You have to be having blindfolds on and covering your ears to think that we don't live in a ver y divisive society now.

"You'd have to make the assumption that if there wasn't such divisiveness, that we would have a more coordinated approach," Fauci added.