By Kiran Paesel
age 15, KidScoop
Media Correspondent
On a Sunday afternoon, I drove to Culver City High School’s newly renovated Robert Frost Auditorium to interview Dr. Anthony Fauci before his event later that evening. As I waited in line to go inside, members of the MAGA movement were outside screaming and waving signs in protest. I was kinda awkwardly standing there representing KidScoop Media taking it all in.
Dr. Fauci was scheduled to appear on stage in an interview with actor Sean Penn, to discuss his latest book, On Call. The event was organized by Live Talks Los Angeles, and hundreds of people were there in attendance.
I got to witness members of the MAGA movement, waving Trump 2024 flags, and yelling out on bullhorns, “The vaccine was fake,” “Covid was a lie,” and “The Doctor of Death.”
After going inside and being escorted backstage, we were greeted by Dr. Fauci, who shook my hand with a warm smile on his face. We sat facing each other and I began the interview. We started by talking about the dangers of infectious diseases, along with the differences between Ebola and Covid-19. He carefully explained that what makes a contagion pandemic-level dangerous, in his eyes, is the rate and method of transmission. With Ebola, the symptoms and results are absolutely horrifying, it is only transmitted through bodily fluids and was never as big a threat as Covid. Covid 19 easily has a higher airborne transmission rate and its ability to be asymptomatic. As he states, “You could go in a room, and someone could have a lot of the virus in their nose, and just speaking would cause the virus to come out. That’s the reason COVID spread like a tsunami all over the country, whereas Ebola is very restricted to the setting of someone who’s very sick.”
We also discussed the topic of medicinal misinformation. Dr Fauci explains that due to the division of the country, and the spreading of medicinal misinformation through social media as a problem that has to be addressed. We discussed the long term effects of Covid, and its lasting impact on society, especially in the areas of education and politics. In his words, “One of the problems in our own country is that we are living in an arena of profound political divisiveness, the likes of which we haven’t seen since the civil war.”
We also discussed genetic sequencing, a technology which he described as the most prevalent medical technology to date.
We finished our interview with a round of fun bonus questions. Dr. Fauci’s shared that he is a “chocolate guy” in terms of any dessert. His favorite childhood dinner is rigatoni pasta, sausage, and red sauce, which he still eats and loves to this day. He even used to play basketball, was the captain of his high school basketball team, and wanted to go into professional basketball until around the twelfth grade, at which point he unfortunately remembered he was only 5’7. But he still enjoys playing one-on one basketball.
And the thing he said, which resonated with me the most, was when he addressed teens that may want to go into public health. He proudly stated that the work that public health officials do to help society for the greater good was,“a priceless feeling,” and that the ability to positively impact the lives of many people was something that was the proud passion of many.
We wrapped up our interview and I went to join the audience for the main event to see Sean Penn interview Dr. Fauci. I loved the interview. It went in depth and focused on his memoir “On Call,” about life and profound work in pandemic after pandemic such as HIV/AIDS, swine flu, the Ebola, and definitely not least COVID-19. He discussed his work under seven presidents, and his willingness to stick to scientific fact and reason even against a politically charged agenda.
Speaking of a politically charged agenda (MAGA), they stood up from the audience and yelled out their own take on things before security escorted them out. Around six different objections were heard, with similar or identical points to what I heard outside the auditorium. It was a little scary, but their objections were so loud, blustering, and vitriolic I almost recorded one to use as my alarm clock to wake me up in the morning. Despite these interruptions, Fauci and Penn carried on, joking and cracking jokes as to when the next disruption would happen, and never letting the protestor’s chaos get to them or interrupt their flow.
All in all, I appreciated the experience, it was amazing to get to meet Dr. Fauci himself as a beacon of public safety. And I’m incredibly grateful to KidScoop Media for the experience.
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