Fauci told the Financial Times he was "sure" his messages were sent to the president even though the two have not been in close contact in the past several weeks.

The comments from the Trump administration's director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases came as Trump has been critical of Fauci and spoken openly about issues on which they disagree.

In a Thursday interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump said Fauci had "made a lot of mistakes" but called him a "nice man." Trump also said "most cases" of coronavirus would "automatically cure. They automatically get better."

Fauci also in the FT interview said Trump was incorrect in claiming 99% of coronavirus cases were "harmless" and may have conflated some statistics.

PHOENIX — The Arizona health department reported single-day records of 4,878 new coronavirus cases and 88 deaths Wednesday morning.

That brings the state’s documented totals to 84,092 COVID-19 cases and 1,720 fatalities.

The previous single-day highs were 4,682 on Tuesday and 79 deaths from June 24. However, both of those figures were inflated because they included older data that hadn’t previously been accounted for in the stat reports. Wednesday’s report came with no such caveat.

The positive percentage of PCR tests, which detect active infections, continues to soar.

There have been more than 549,000 PCR tests given in Arizona, including 17,227 added to the total Wednesday. Of the total, 12.4% have come back positive as of Wednesday. The positive rate was 12% a day earlier and just 6.7% on the last day of May.

The weekly positive rate for PCR tests has risen every week since the week starting May 10, when it was 5%.

Of the PCR samples collected last week that have been processed, a pandemic-high 20% have come back positive. So far this week, that figure is 24%.

ICU bed usage reached a pandemic-high of 89% in Arizona on Tuesday, according to the latest state data, with the available supply down to a low point of 187 beds.

Overall inpatient bed usage was at 85%, 1 percentage point below the pandemic high last seen June 26.