Dr. Anthony Fauci said he is fearful someone will kill him over his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"It's sort of surrealistic," Fauci told USA Today in an interview about his memoir, "On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service," published Tuesday by Viking.
"Go back years when I was in medical school, did I ever think that I would be in a situation where millions and millions of people love me for what I've done, saving millions of lives ... and yet have some people who actually want to kill me?"
Fauci two weeks ago said he saw a direct link between the rise in death threats made against him connecting him to COVID-19 conspiracy theories.
"It's a pattern," Fauci told CNN's Kaitlan Collins on "The Source," adding that when someone in the media or in Congress "gets up and makes a public statement that I'm responsible for the deaths of X number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus — immediately you can, it's like clockwork — the death threats go way up."
He told USA Today he was grateful for his daily security team.
"Do I feel safe?" Fauci mused, repeating a reporter's question. Yes, but "I still think deep down that there's a possibility that somebody's going to kill me."