Dr. Anthony Fauci responded to his “mischievous” critics in response to a viral photograph that showed him sitting between two people with his mask off at the Washington Nationals’ season opener.
Fauci, who threw out the first pitch at the Thursday night game, explained to Fox News on Friday the circumstances behind the photograph in which he can be seen with his mask around his chin.
One person in the photo was his wife, and “the other person is a very close friend of mine,” Fauci said.
“I think this is sort of mischievous with this thing going around,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases added. “I had my mask around my chin, I had taken it down, I was totally dehydrated, and I was drinking water trying to rehydrate myself.”
Fauci also said he had been tested for the coronavirus a day earlier.
“To pull it down to take some sips of water and put it back up again, I guess if people want to make something about that, they can. But to me, I think that’s just mischievous,” he said.
