Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus pandemic, sought on Wednesday to discourage doubts about the antiviral drug Paxlovid after disclosing that he had suffered what appeared to be a “rebound” of Covid-19 after taking a five-day course of the pills.
“Paxlovid did what it was supposed to do,” Dr. Fauci, 81, said in an interview, saying that he believed that the treatment, made by Pfizer, kept him out of the hospital when he first tested positive for the virus on June 15. He added that he thought the drug also reduced the severity of his initial symptoms.
One thing Paxlovid could not do was keep Dr. Fauci from missing his daughter’s wedding. It went on without him in New Orleans two Saturdays ago, when he was sidelined with his initial infection. He participated remotely. Dr. Fauci has been vaccinated against Covid and has received two booster doses.