Dr. Anthony Fauci has been on the front lines fighting the coronavirus pandemic for months now and you’d think people would be grateful for that but more than a few aren’t. And they are threatening his safety and that of his family.

Fauci, the foremost U.S. infectious disease expert, serves on the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, recently told CNN’s The Axe Files have been assigned personal security because they have received “serious threats.”

This isn’t the first time Fauci has received threats, Business Insider reports. He was also targeted while working as one of the top epidemiologists working on the federal government’s response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic during the 1980s through the 1990s. But those threats were of a lesser magnitude.

“I’ve seen a side of society that I guess is understandable, but it’s a little bit disturbing,” he said. “Back in the days of HIV when I was being criticized with some hate mail, it was, you know, people calling me a gay-lover and ‘What the hell are you wasting a lot of time on that?”

In other words, the threats were “things that you would just push aside as stupid people saying stupid things,” he said.

But the situation has escalated since then and now the criticism is “really a magnitude different now, because of the anger,” he said.

“As much as people inappropriately, I think, make me somewhat of a hero — and I’m not a hero, I’m just doing my job — there are people who get really angry at thinking I’m interfering with their life because I’m pushing a public health agenda,” Fauci added.

He noted he’s not just receiving typical hate male and said it’s “not only hate mail but also serious threats.”

“It’s not good,” he added. “I don’t see how society does that. It’s tough. Serious threats against me, my family … my daughters, my wife — I mean really? Is this the United States of America?”

Welp, unfortunately, it is. It’s a land of QAnon conspiracy theorists and other wackadoodle fanatics who have entirely too much time on their hands and Fauci now says the threats have caused him and his family to be assigned personal security.

He has until recently, been a regular participant in White House press briefings on the coronavirus, offering astute assessments of the situation, and this built up the public’s confidence in his expertise. That was reflected in national polls, and he was even featured on the front cover of a top magazine. And as mentioned before, he has been hailed as a hero by some.

While measures have been established to slow the spread of the virus, such as wearing masks, and public lockdowns, partisan conflict has also developed and Fauci has come under attack.

President Donald Trump has undermined Fauci on a number of occasions as he stubbornly spent months refusing to wear a mask and has urged states to reopen while the pandemic is still in full swing to jumpstart the economy.

It also hasn’t helped that a White House official distributed a list of mistakes that claimed Fauci made as part of an effort to undermine the noted epidemiologist because his messages regarding the existing dangers of COVID-19 and its climbing infection rates contradicts Trump’s chatty assessments.

And QAnon followers have seen fit to target Fauci with some of their nonsense, who claim, without any credible evidence whatsoever, that a “deep state” of bureaucrats is trying to end Trump’s presidency by exploiting the pandemic to seize power.

In an interview with The New York Times this week, Fauci said he has received emails and texts from people “that are pretty hostile about what I’m doing as if I’m encroaching on their personal liberties.”

Fauci said he finds it difficult to believe people can be this hostile when it comes to something that’s a major public health issue.

“I suppose what this reflects is the divisiveness of our society at a political level,” he said. “I mean this is a public health issue, the fundamental principles of public health, and I don’t see how people have animosity to that.”

Fauci said he’s well aware lockdowns have unpleasant consequences and that this is “why we’re all trying to open up America again in a way that’s safe, so we can do it in a measured fashion.”

“But the hostility to public health issues is difficult not only to understand but difficult to process,” he said in conclusion.

But all this really amounts to is that Trump supporters aren’t getting their own way and they are pissed. That’s what this really is. And in order to get their way, they don’t care who gets hurt in the process. They are just emulating Trump. Period.