Shortly after receiving their long-awaited celebrity endorsement, these two Parkland brothers got in contact with one of the most influential people in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently met with Adam and Josh Buchwald via Zoom to discuss vaccines, slowing the spread of COVID-19 and more. The entire interview can be found here.
Promise to Humanity began all the way back in May of this year when the Buchwald brothers could not stand idly by as the virus spread throughout the nation and world. They worried for their younger sister, Lauren, as she is at high-risk for complications if she contracts COVID-19. They detested the negligent partying and lack of social distancing around them, so they created Promise to Humanity.
“[Today it is] a global movement asking individuals across the world to sign a pledge vowing to wear a mask, practice social distancing, and following all safety measures in an effort to save loved ones and slow the spread of the virus,” Adam explained to Fauci in their interview.
Adam and Josh were connected to Dr. Fauci through the same agent that resulted in them meeting with Matthew McConaughey only a few weeks ago. They largely attribute their success with reaching both McConaughey and Dr. Fauci to their persistence through phone calls and emails.
“Our pledge was built on [Dr. Fauci’s] recommendations and we asked how we could further his mission of slowing the spread of the virus through our pledge,” the Buchwald brothers noted. “We also are planning to reach out in the future for a follow-up interview with the intentions of getting more insight as the COVID-19 vaccines progress, continuing our mutual leadership, and finding more ways to promote Promise to Humanity throughout the world.”
Dr. Fauci shed some light on the vaccine’s development citing 3 major clinical trials that are currently underway to test the safety of this medication. All 3 trials are in phase 3 of study. 4 out of the 6 or 7 trials are being subsidized by the government, according to Dr. Fauci.
All of these trials are conducted with thousands of participants, yet only projections can be made in regard to when this vaccine would be able to be rolled out. Dr. Fauci predicts November or December is most likely to get an answer in regard to this.
“If you ask me what is my level of optimism about this, I would say that I’m cautiously optimistic based on the data that I’ve seen from the Phase 1 study and from the animal study,” Dr. Fauci notes. “I’m cautiously optimistic that we will have a vaccine that will be effective and hopefully safe, and we’ll prove that sometime by the end of this calendar year. So, there’s a lot of optimism there, but no guarantee.
Dr. Fauci and the Buchwald brothers continue their conversation throughout this 16-minute interview noting America could open again safely if everyone abided by recommended phased opening criteria.
“And unfortunately, we didn’t do that,” Dr. Fauci explained. “And we had a big surge of cases if you recall… right now we’ve plateaued around 35,000-40,000 cases per day and that is still unacceptably high.”
Adam and Josh Buchwald hope this recent interview and endorsement by someone as notable as Dr. Fauci will bolster their movement further on the national stage. Recently, they have surpassed 10,400 downloads of the pledge on their website.
“Hopefully what you’re doing is going to help out to get people to wear masks, to physically distance, to avoid crowds, to do things outside, to wash their hands,” Dr. Fauci said. If people do that, we can avoid surges as we try to open up the economy and open up the country.”
“Being able to talk to a government official like Dr. Fauci and having him sign our Promise to Humanity pledge is extremely exciting and has impacted our movement greatly,” the brothers commented.
Next, Adam and Josh plan to continue their shift of focus to colleges around the nation through contacting sororities, fraternities, and various student organizations on campus.
“We think it’s super important for students to get involved and make a difference in their communities,” the Buchwalds said. “We find it is beneficial to nominate others as our goal is to keep the chain flowing.”
They concluded their message by stating a recent success they had with Viterbo University in Wisconsin hosting a Promise to Humanity event to encourage students to sign this pledge.