US partisanship makes fighting COVID-19 harder: Fauci

WASHINGTON - A top US infectious diseases expert said on Thursday that US partisanship has made the fight against COVID-19 harder and the country is not doing well in anti-epidemic fight compared to others.

"You have to be having blind folders on and covering your ears to think that we don't live in a very divisive society now," said Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in an interview with the FiveThirtyEight podcast.

"You'd have to make the assumption that if there wasn't such divisiveness, that we would have a more coordinated approach," Fauci said.

In his latest rebuke to US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly touted alleged progress the United States has made in tackling the COVID-19 outbreak, Fauci acknowledged that the country has performed poorly in the battle against COVID-19.

"As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great. I mean, we're just not," he said.