• 3 months ago
At a House Democratic press briefing, Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-CA) defended 6-foot social distancing measures.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript


Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Transcript
00:00Any questions?
00:04Obviously, during the 14-hour transcribed interview with Fauci, you mentioned about the origins of COVID.
00:13The public has also criticized him over the handling of some of the precautions like masking and the six-foot social distancing.
00:25What's your assessment of how Fauci handled those questions in the interview?
00:55It was an airborne virus from micro-droplets in your mouth.
01:00And therefore, when you would speak or cough or sneeze, you have micro-droplets moving from your mouth into the space.
01:09And if people inhaled it or if those micro-droplets got into your eyes, your nose, your mouth, you would get infected with the virus.
01:17So clearly, if you're standing a mile away and I'm here, these micro-droplets aren't going to reach you.
01:23So clearly, social distancing has been a basic, fundamental public health measure to prevent airborne droplets from a person's mouth to infect somebody else.
01:36Now, the question was why six feet versus three feet versus 10 feet?
01:43Now, that was arbitrary because we know that the distance that a micro-droplet travels is based on many variables,
01:51including the force of ejection from somebody's mouth through cough, sneezing, singing.
01:56It could be dependent on how long it hovers, the wind, etc.
02:04So in order to simplify the understanding of social distancing, six foot was chosen in order to create that measurement for social distancing that was easy for people to follow.
02:17Okay, next question. Yes.
02:21There's been testimony during the committee about Dr. Fauci's avoiding FOIA requests.
02:28And I'm wondering how concerned are you that the institute that he ran, perhaps to his knowledge, avoided giving the information at request or took steps not to comply with FOIA?
02:41So, thank you for that question.
02:44One is there is no evidence to suggest that he knew about it.
02:48Two, we are very concerned when any administrative employee does not comply with FOIA or tries to bypass it.
03:01We made it very clear during the testimonies of David Morins that that is not acceptable.
03:10But let's tease out the differences here between the accusations that Dr. Fauci created the virus, that he lied about it, that he suppressed the truth, and that he tried to cover it up,
03:26versus an individual who bypassed the FOIA and used his personal emails and that bad practice that he's going to be held accountable for.
03:42So there's two very different subjects.
03:44And regarding any individual that will skirt the laws of FOIA, that's very concerning and they should be held accountable.
03:53Yes.
03:55Yes.

Recommended