Local health officials describe Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the temporary target of President Donald Trump’s Twitter ire this past weekend, as a genuine public health expert and brilliant researcher.

“He’s rock solid. In the infectious disease world, he’s sort of a rock star,” said Dr. Bob Lutz, Spokane County health officer. “They’ve wanted him to be the director of (the National Institutes for Health), and he refuses to do so.

“He knows his role best.”

Fauci has served as the NIAID director since 1984, advising six presidents through outbreaks and disease responses, starting with Ronald Reagan.

But over the weekend he was on shaky political ground.

Trump brought potential frustrations with Fauci over the weekend to social media when he retweeted a former candidate for Congress’ tweet that contained the hashtag #FireFauci prompting several news outlets to question his approval of the well-respected public health expert.

Fauci had told Jake Tapper on CNN that earlier mitigation efforts could have saved more lives in the United States.

“If we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different, but there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then,” Fauci told Tapper.

On Monday, Fauci offered an upfront clarification at the beginning of the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, seemingly appeasing any potential tension with Trump.

Fauci walked back his “pushback” comment on Monday, saying it was the wrong choice of words. He said the first time he and Dr. Deborah Birx formally took a recommendation for strong mitigation efforts to Trump, he had listened.

Other efforts to impose mitigation efforts at the end of February were derailed, the New York Times reported this weekend, using both emails and memos they obtained, which showed that federal health agency directors and leaders wanted to present Trump with mitigation strategies as early as Feb. 23, but their efforts were sidelined.

Spokane County Health Officer Bob Lutz called Fauci a “mentor” at a town hall last week, which he meant metaphorically. He has never met Fauci but follows his guidance.

Fauci has had arguably his toughest draw recently, with COVID-19 infecting more than a half-million people in the United States and killing 21,622 people so far.

Lutz acknowledged that Fauci has had to navigate through and withdraw misinformation throughout the federal COVID-19 response.

“He’s been artful,” Lutz said.

Fauci has regularly given what predictions he can about what mitigation strategies, like stay-home orders and social distancing, might do to help slow the spread of the virus.

Former Washington state Secretary of Health Mary Selecky said Fauci is doing a great job with risk communication and speaking in terms people can understand.

“When he speaks, I do listen,” she said.

Selecky views Fauci’s expertise as just one part of the two-part response necessary to respond to the pandemic: public health research coupled with boots on the ground at federal, state and local health departments. Selecky said Fauci is an incredible research scientist. Research and actions on the ground will both be necessary for the community response.

In her 40 years in public health, Selecky has seen AIDS, H1N1 and SARS outbreaks. What makes COVID-19 different is the scope and magnitude.

“It’s hitting everybody,” she said. “There’s not a state where there’s not a case, and it’s happening at the same time, so the demand is so huge.”

The national impact seems to magnify the national response, and looking to the coming weeks and months when parts of society could be slowly re-opened, local health officials will look to Fauci’s guidance. When asked about the potential end of Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order on May 4 in a town hall last week, Lutz echoed Fauci’s comments in recent days.

“My expectation is that it will not be lifted very suddenly,” Lutz said. “I think as one of my mentors, Dr. Anthony Fauci, has said, I think we need to keep our foot on the gas, because what I don’t want to have happen is us let up and be back where we started.”

Fauci said something similar this weekend on CNN, when he said that mitigation strategies would not be lifted like a light switch, turned on or off.

“It will be gradual,” Fauci said.