During an interview with Now This News, posted on Apr. 17, Fauci, who turned 80 years old in Dec. 2020, revealed one surprising detail about his life—he hasn’t taken a day off in 14 months. He admitted to working “24/7” since the World Health Organization declared COVID a pandemic in March 2020. “You just adapt yourself to it. The problem is too immense and there’s too [many] implications. We’ve lost 560,000 people in America from this tragic pandemic. So I don’t have any time to worry about how tired I am or how I’m feeling. I’ll worry about that later,” Fauci told Now This News. As millions of people across the U.S. are getting vaccinated, the top doctor insists that “things are looking really good” because the “wait and see” group—people who’ve been hesitant to get the shot—is shrinking. He also explained to Now This News that Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are working on safe vaccines for children, which he thinks will be able to be administered by the end of 2021. “We’ve got to do everything we can by pulling together to end this terrible pandemic,” Fauci said. And for more news on the COVID shots, Doctor Behind Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Says You’ll Need a Shot This Often. Fauci also opened up about his busy work day to HuffPost in Dec. 2020, admitting he sometimes stays up until 11 p.m. responding to emails until he’s too tired to continue. “I get like over a thousand emails a day and when they screen it, they screen it down to those few hundred that I have to deal with. Then you have a day that is wall-to-wall, literally,” he told HuffPost, noting he typically puts in 18 hours. Letting HuffPost in on his late November schedule, Fauci’s day started at 5:10 a.m. with a shower and shave, followed by 30 minutes of email checking. He then appeared on various TV stations, and was interviewed by newspapers and a scientific journal. According to HuffPost, Fauci only had a scheduled 20-minute break mid-day. His workload seemingly ended with responding to phone calls between 5:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. but he planned to sift through more messages and emails after eating dinner. “I don’t socialize. It’s my wife and I and the federal agents. We’ve sort of become like a new family unit,” Fauci told HuffPost. And for more COVID news sent to you directly, sign up for our daily newsletter. The one non-work activity Fauci does make time for daily is a power walk with his wife, Christine Grady, RN, PhD, chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. “I make exercise a significant part of my regimen,” Fauci said in a July 2020 interview with InStyle. “Christine and I put in 3.5 miles of power walking every day.“ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Grady added that they make sure they get their steps in, “even if it’s sometimes late in the evening.” And it’s not only good for their physical well-being, but also for their mental health. “Power walking is very enjoyable and relaxing, and we look forward to it,” Fauci said. And for more on the plus side of this workout, check out 25 Amazing Health Benefits of Walking. In May 2020, National Geographic interviewed Fauci and he revealed he was only getting three hours of sleep each night at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. “I was foolish and just thought I could get away with almost no sleep. I mean, like three hours a night. I did that for a few weeks, and it almost killed me,” Fauci said. “It really wore me down badly. Thank goodness I have a very intelligent and clinically skilled wife who turned things around and said, ‘You got to remember to eat, and you’ve got to remember to sleep.’ The day is still impossible, but I don’t think I’m going to drop dead from it. I hope not.” And for advice from other experts, Do This Immediately After Getting Your Vaccine, Doctors Say.
