Watch: Dr. Fauci Explains to Laura Ingraham Why Her HIV/Coronavirus Comparison Is Wrong

Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on Laura Ingraham’s Fox News show on Thursday night and was forced to explain to the conservative host why her comparison of HIV/AIDS to Covid-19 was not accurate. Fauci debunked Ingraham’s claim live on air.

“On the question of a vaccine, we don’t have a vaccine for SARS,” Ingraham said. “I mean, they got close in mice. We don’t have a vaccine for HIV, and life did go on, right? So, the idea that we are definitely going to have a vaccine, we didn’t really approach much else in the same way as we are pegging going back to normal with a vaccine. Did we?”

“Well, no, but Laura, this is different,” Fauci said. “HIV/AIDS is entirely different. We don’t have a vaccine for HIV/AIDS but we have spectacularly effective treatment. People who invariably would have died years ago right now are leading essentially normal lives.”

INGRAHAM: We don't have a vaccine for SARS or HIV. Life went on, right?

FAUCI: HIV/AIDS is very different. We have effective treatments. And SARS went away. So your comparison is misleading.

I: But coronavirus could disappear too.

F: These kind of viruses don't just disappear. pic.twitter.com/YptrqViRQx

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 17, 2020

“SARS is a different story. SARS disappeared. We developed a vaccine — we were in the process of going through the various phases. We showed it was safe, we showed it induced a good response and then SARS disappeared, and we didn’t need to develop a vaccine for SARS. So I think it’s a little bit misleading maybe to compare what we are going through now with HIV or SARS. They’re really different.”

“But we don’t know, this could disappear,” Ingraham pressed. “I mean, SARS did pretty much disappear. This could as well, correct?”

“Yeah. You know, anything could, Laura, but I have to tell you the degree of efficiency of transmissibility of this is really unprecedented in anything that I’ve seen,” Fauci replied.

“It’s an extraordinarily efficient virus in transmitting from one person to another. Those kind of viruses don’t just disappear.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News/Twitter.