Dr. Anthony Fauci assured children on Saturday that Santa Claus is immune from COVID-19 because he personally traveled to the North Pole to administer the vaccine to him.
Responding to pre-recorded questions from young children and a masked Elmo during a Sesame Street-themed COVID-19 town hall on CNN, Fauci answered one six-year-old boy who asked, “Will Santa still be able to visit me in coronavirus season? What if he can’t go to anyone’s house or near his reindeer?”
“I took care of that for you because I was worried that you’d all be upset,” Fauci said.
“So what I did a little while ago, I took a trip up there to the North Pole, I went there, and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself,” Fauci further explained. “I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go. He can come down the chimney. He can leave the presents, and you have nothing to worry about.”
WATCH:
Santa Claus will be coming to town this year, Dr. Anthony Fauci says.
“I took care of that for you,” he says. “…I took a trip up there to the North Pole; I went there and I vaccinated Santa Claus myself. I measured his level of immunity, and he is good to go.” #CNNSesameStreet pic.twitter.com/CNJ520XTew
— CNN (@CNN) December 19, 2020
Fauci has elsewhere been less than festive when discussing Christmas gatherings. He was faced with accusations of attempting to “cancel” Christmas when he seemingly advised Americans to follow his example of not visiting family this year.
As The Daily Wire reported:
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he and his wife will not be spending Christmas with family this year and advised other American families to follow his example.
“I’m going to be with my wife — period,” Fauci told The Washington Post on Monday regarding his holiday plans. “The Christmas holiday is a special holiday for us because Christmas Eve is my birthday. And Christmas Day is Christmas Day. And [my daughters] are not going to come home … That’s painful. We don’t like that. But that’s just one of the things you’re going to have to accept as we go through this unprecedented challenging time.”
Fauci later clarified to Fox News host Bill Hemmer on Thursday that he was not advising everyone to cancel planned Christmas gatherings, but simply that they should “be careful.”
“I’m not saying that everyone should cancel the family gathering, I’m saying that people will need to make individual choices,” Fauci said. “When you’re talking about having a congregate setting for a dinner — not cancel the family aspect.”
“You have some Christmas dinners [where] people bring friends and others in who travel from different parts of the country. You could have 15, 20 people at a dinner,” Fauci continued. “That’s really somewhat risky. You can do a modified version of that.”
“You don’t have to cancel things; you can still spend time with your family. I’m just asking people to be careful when it comes to travel that may not be necessary, travel that you can avoid, and when you get together, try to make some limitation to it.”
“I’ve heard and seen tweets saying, ‘Fauci says cancel Christmas,'” Fauci added. “Nonsense. I’ve never said that.”
Related: Fauci Cancels Christmas: ‘Just One Of The Things You’re Going To Have To Accept’