WASHINGTON– Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, offered encouragement–tinged by firsthand experience–to young people on doing their part in separating politics from science as they navigate life in the age of coronavirus.

“Do your thing, and don’t get involved in any of the political nonsense, that’s a waste of time, and a distraction,” Fauci advised students during a virtual forum Tuesday, hosted by Georgetown University’s Global Health Initiative,

Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a message that White House officials have become hostile to as President Donald Trump focuses on pushing an economic rebound.

Fauci, asked by a students how to separate politics from the science, said it’s very tough for young people to have an impact on depoliticization of the virus “except by not being part of the politicization.”

He added it was important that young people remind each other that in protecting oneself from the virus that “it doesn’t matter who you are, what you are–you’re Republican, Democrat, anybody else.”