WATCH: Former Biden official who received full pay during the pandemic, criticizes others for not ‘being able to sacrifice’

Slavitt, a former senior COVID advisor to the fledgling Biden administration, and author of the book "Preventable," was asked about the points he made in his book. "How much of this pandemic was preventable and how?" asked Dokoupil of Slavitt.

"Well, of course, we would have had a pandemic here in the States no matter what. But, look, we can count the mistakes, and I think it's important that we do, if for nothing else, so that we don't repeat them."

"We obviously had a set of technical mistakes with the testing and the PPE that we know about. But, if we're honest, we also had two other types of mistakes that caused a lot of loss of life."

"One were just plainly political leadership mistakes. There was a lot ... we denied the virus for too long under the Trump White House. There was too much squashing of dissent and plain-out divisions."

"But I also think we all need to look at one another and ask ourselves what we need to do better next time. And in many respects, being able to sacrifice a little bit for one another to get through this and to save more lives is going to be essential. And I think it's something that we all could have done a little bit better on."

Slavitt suggested "not breathing near one another in large spaces," and added that "people that were unvaccinated really are going to have to pay serious attention to that and look at getting vaccinated."

Social media pundits were quick to voice their reactions, pointing out what they saw as fallacies and other problems with the book, as well as Slavitt's points.

Slavitt's finances are not a matter of public record, but it does appear that he recently sold a home for over $2.5M.