Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gets around 2,000 emails per day, and he tries to read and respond to each email, according to a June 9 report by CNBC.
A recent Freedom of Information request obtained thousands of Dr. Fauci's emails and offered a glimpse into the busy life of the White House's chief medical adviser.
Dr. Fauci told a friend in late March 2020 that he was getting more than 2,000 emails a day.
He believes he should read and respond to each email because a lot of people rely on his feedback, Dr. Fauci told The Wall Street Journal at its health tech event June 9.
"I am the type of person, I get asked a lot of questions that are medical questions [from] people who need help," Dr. Fauci said. "I’ve never been able to lose that feeling of responsibility of when people reach out to you and ask for help that you respond to them. So, I do that, [and] that takes a lot of time."
To get through the vast number of emails he is receiving, he responds to emails on the go with his iPhone. He also works late into the night. In the early days of the pandemic, he said he was only getting four hours of sleep each night.
"I spend a lot of time doing emails and sometimes late into the night," Dr. Fauci said, adding that he occasionally responds to emails until 1 or 2 a.m.
Another trick he uses to respond to most emails is by replying with brief messages, such as "Thank you for your note. AS Fauci."
Despite the number of emails streaming through his inbox, he said he cannot delete them.
"People tell me that, 'Why don't you just wipe the screen clean?'" Dr. Fauci said. "You can't do that. You just can't."