Dr. Fauci said, “My message — and my final message, maybe the final message I give you from this podium — is that please for your own safety, for that of your family, get your updated COVID-19 shot as soon as you’re eligible to protect yourself, your family and your community,”.

Fauci said during the briefing that “As a physician, it pains me because I don’t want to see anybody get infected, I don’t want to see anybody hospitalized, and I don’t want to see anybody die from COVID,”.

Adding that he has seen people “not getting vaccinated for reasons that have nothing to do with public health, but have to do because of divisiveness and 

ideological differences.”

At the end of the year, Dr. Fauci will be leaving his position in government after being in government for over 50 years. 

Fauci worked at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 54 years and spent 38 years as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Fauci has said that while he is leaving the government, he is not retiring and will be moving onto “the next phase” of his career.