(Photo by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | By Damian Paletta and Yasmeen Abutaleb As the coronavirus pandemic engulfed the world last spring, Science magazine quoted a top Chinese health official saying that the United States and other Western nations were making a "big mistake" by not telling people to mask up. Science magazine stands by its reporting. But the official, George Gao, worried that the comment might upset his longtime friend Anthony S. Fauci, Washington's leading expert on infectious diseases. So amid the deepening crisis, Gao reached out to clear the air. "I saw the Science interview, how could I say such a word 'big mistake' about others? That was journalist's wording. Hope you understand," Gao, director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote to Fauci in a March 28 email. "Lets work together to get the virus out of the earth." "I understand completely. No problem," Fauci wrote back. "We will get through this together." The previously unreported exchange was among 866 pages of Fauci's emails obtained by The Washington Post as part of a Freedom of Information Act request. The correspondence from March and April 2020 opens a window to Fauci's world during some of the most frantic days of the crisis … Read more » More Post Exclusives Don't miss the next big story Be one of the first to read investigative journalism you'll only find in The Post. | |
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