Fauci and the White House clash ahead of election

Anthony Fauci, one of America's top government scientists, has issued an urgent plea for a change in US policy on the coronavirus. This -- quite understandably -- drew the wrath of the Trump administration in the final days of a hard-fought election campaign.

The virus has claimed more than 230,000 lives in the US, which last week suffered record high numbers of cases -- hitting 98,000 on Friday.

Fauci, in an interview in the Washington Post on Sunday, warned that the United States is headed for "a whole lot of hurt" unless it makes an "abrupt change" in health practices.

America, under the incumbent president, Donald Trump, has been ignoring safe practices and many hospitals already under severe strain as cold weather and the flu season arrive, "You could not possibly be positioned more poorly," Fauci said.

To this end, Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, offered a scathing response.

"It's unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of thePresident's Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics," he said in a statement.

Trump, keeping up a frenetic pace of campaigning against Democratic challenger Joe Biden, has insisted the country is "rounding the turn" on the virus, and has even alleged -- without any evidence -- that many doctors are inflating virus death tolls for profit.

"I mean, our doctors are very smart people," Trump said at a rally Friday in Michigan. "So what they do is they say, 'I'm sorry but everybody dies of Covid.'"

Fauci, a top member of the White House coronavirus task force, once briefed Trump on the virus almost daily but said the president no longer seeks his advice. 

In mid-October, during a telephone conference call, Trump called Fauci a "disaster."