{"id":33120,"date":"2020-10-24T15:11:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-24T19:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=33120"},"modified":"2020-10-24T15:11:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-24T19:11:08","slug":"lockdown-madness-the-many-masks-of-anthony-fauci","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=33120","title":{"rendered":"Lockdown Madness: The Many Masks of Anthony Fauci"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a><\/div>\n

The Many Masks of Anthony Fauci<\/h1>\n

<\/p>\n

Anthony Fauci contradicts himself so often that we literally can\u2019t believe anything he says.<\/h3>\n

Selwyn Duke<\/h3>\n
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America\u2019s COVID-19 guru Anthony Fauci contradicts himself so often that we literally can\u2019t believe anything he says.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That \u201cFauci\u201d in Italian means \u201cjaws\u201d or \u201cmouth\u201d certainly lends itself to some humor. First, there\u2019s how our Dr. Anthony Fauci just loves talking to the media, attracted to cameras like a moth to flame. Then there\u2019s how Lockdown Tony had helped position us in the gaping maw of economic death. There\u2019s also, however, how heeding his counsel has placed us in the jaws of confusion \u2014 within which he, apparently, has been ensnared for decades.<\/p>\n

Unbeknownst to most, the 79-year-old Fauci could be our country\u2019s longest-serving bureaucrat, having been with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1968 and acting as its director since 1984. He\u2019s not actually an immunologist (or an epidemiologist or virologist. Get the gist?), however, though he\u2019s often thus billed. His bio lists only a medical degree in internal medicine as relevant credentials, yet the Sun Sentinel<\/em>, for example, called Fauci \u201cthe nation\u2019s leading expert on infectious diseases.\u201d Where he\u2019s leading, though, is the question.<\/p>\n

While the current Wuhan virus pandemic has raised that question in the minds of many, the doctor\u2019s expertise was put to the test at least as far back as AIDS\u2019 emergence in the 1980s. It was then that \u201cFauci claimed that AIDS might be transmissible by \u2018routine close contact.\u2019 (May 5, 1983, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/em>),\u201d wrote the Gateway Pundit\u2019s Jim Hoft April 5. \u201cFauci claimed that ten percent of the HIV\/AIDS infected would be heterosexual \u2014 more than two and half times the rate \u2014 four percent \u2014 it actually was,\u201d Hoft continued.<\/p>\n

Apropos to this, it was common knowledge in the \u201980s that AIDS affected mainly the \u201cthree H\u2019s\u201d: heroin users (sharing dirty needles), hemophiliacs (contaminated blood received via transfusions), and homosexuals (high-risk sexual practices). But not according to Fauci, Hoft relates. When columnist George Will told the doctor on February 15, 1987 that HIV\/AIDS mainly plagued homosexuals and that it was not exploding into mainstream America, Fauci shot back, \u201cThat\u2019s not correct\u2026. It is projected that that [heterosexual] number will be up in 1991 to about 10 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s a parallel here involving our time. That is to say, insisting that everyone was gravely imperiled by the Wuhan virus no doubt contributed to not focusing resources and attention where they would do the most good \u2014 for instance, on nursing homes, in which 40 to 50 percent of our virus deaths have occurred. Likewise, Fauci\u2019s \u201980s counsel might have prevented us from directing attention during the AIDS situation where it belonged: on the homosexual population. Note here that the 10-percent heterosexual infection rate \u201cclaim was a standard talking point of his,\u201d as Hoft puts it.<\/p>\n

But Fauci doesn\u2019t seem to have many standard talking points with the Wuhan virus today, as he has regularly contradicted himself in significant ways. As Hoft reported April 13, \u201cDr. Fauci says he warned Trump in January that the US was in real trouble but that is not what he said publicly.\u201d Rather, on January 21, \u201cDr. Anthony Fauci told Newsmax TV that the United States \u2018did not have to worry\u2019\u00a0about the coronavirus and that it was \u2018not a major threat,\u2019\u201d Hoft relates.<\/p>\n

Fauci then repeated this pattern. In an Easter Sunday interview with CNN\u2019s Jake Tapper, Fauci claimed \u201cthat the government had been advised to begin social distancing measures in February,\u201d the U.K. Sun<\/em> informed. \u201cWe look at it from a pure health standpoint,\u201d Fauci said. \u201cWe make a recommendation, often the recommendation is taken, sometimes it\u2019s not.\u201d The doctor echoed this later that day on MSNBC, telling host Al Sharpton that he warned the administration in mid- to late January that \u201cwe were in real trouble\u201d because of COVID-19.<\/p>\n

Yet when he himself was asked on the February 29 edition of the Today Show <\/em>if Americans should change their habits, Fauci answered, \u201cNo, right now, at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you\u2019re doing on a day-by-day basis.\u201d The doctor has never explained these contradictions.<\/p>\n

As Hoft also reported April 13:<\/p>\n

Dr. Fauci warned of an apocalyptic coronavirus pandemic \u2014 then just weeks later he \u2026 compared the coronavirus to a bad flu.<\/p>\n

Dr. Fauci based all of his predictions on \u2026 IHME [Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation] models\u00a0that were OFF BY MILLIONS and then told reporters this past week,\u00a0\u201cYou can\u2019t really rely on models.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Fauci pushed these \u2026 models every step of the way.<\/p>\n

Three weeks ago Dr. Fauci claimed 1 million to 2 million Americans would die from coronavirus. Then he said 100,000 to 200,000 Americans will die from the virus. Then last week he agreed 81,766 Americans would die from the coronavirus. Then by Wednesday the\u00a0experts cut the number of deaths\u00a0to 60,415 projected deaths.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, one of the doctor\u2019s guesses could be correct, but to know which one we\u2019d have to ascertain how many Americans have actually died of COVID-19. That number is officially about 206,000, yet according to the CDC\u2019s own statistics only about six percent of those who died with COVID-19 died because of COVID-19 alone.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the Travel Ban Plan?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Next there are Fauci\u2019s migrating positions on travel restrictions. On February 26, he was asked by CNBC host Sara Eisen, \u201cIs there any talk of closing flights from Europe or flights from Asia, outside of China?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t think at all that that will happen,\u201d the bureaucrat answered. \u201cWhen you have a pandemic that involves multiple countries, travel restrictions become almost irrelevant because you can\u2019t keep out the entire world.\u201d Doubling down, Fauci later reiterated that \u201cwhen you have multiple countries involved it\u2019s very difficult to do that. In fact, it\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just a bit more than two weeks later, however, Fauci believed in the impossible. While addressing the recently instituted travel restrictions involving China and Europe, he told reporters on the White House lawn March 12 that they were a \u201cprudent choice\u201d because a majority of the United States\u2019 new cases \u201care from Europe.\u201d \u201cWe spent a lot of time thinking about it, discussing it, about whether we should do it,\u201d he explained \u2014 \u201cand it was the right public health call.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back to School?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Then there was Fauci\u2019s answer when Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested, during May 12 Senate testimony, that schools should reopen come fall. Paul, a physician himself, pointed out that New York data showed that the Wuhan virus mortality rate for individuals aged 0 to 18 \u201capproaches zero.\u201d Unmoved, Fauci replied, \u201cWe really better be very careful, particularly when it comes to children, because the more and more we learn, we\u2019re seeing things the virus can do.\u201d Yet in a CNN phone interview just three weeks later (June 3), Fauci said that \u201cto make an extrapolation that you shouldn\u2019t open schools [in the fall], I think is a bit of a reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Back<\/figure>\n
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Kid you not: <\/strong>The flu is more dangerous to children than is COVID-19, which poses almost no threat to them at all. Yet authorities maintain the illusion \u2014 once enabled by Fauci \u2014 that opening schools is a danger to the young. (Photo: AP Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

In fairness, at least this is an area where Fauci hasn\u2019t made definitive pronouncements \u2014 the problem is that it\u2019s an area where he should have. As the Washington Post <\/em>reported September 12, German schools had seen no coronavirus outbreaks since reopening a month before. This just reflects earlier data showing that, as the Telegraph<\/em> told us May 18, no virus spikes were \u201cfound after re-opening schools in 22 EU countries.\u201d Note, too, that a study out of Britain\u2019s Newcastle University found that children under 10 are twice as likely to die of the flu as of the Wuhan virus; moreover, other research indicates that kids don\u2019t readily spread the latter to others.<\/p>\n

Where Fauci has been more definitive (at least provisionally) is in his predictions regarding autumn in general. He told MSNBC in April, \u201cIt\u2019s inevitable that the coronavirus will return next season.\u201d Yet a month later Fauci sang a different tune: \u201cWe often talk about the possibility of a second wave, or of an outbreak when you\u2019re reopening,\u201d he told CNN in a May 27 interview. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to accept that as an inevitability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now Fauci takes a somewhat different position altogether, saying that there won\u2019t be a second wave because we never emerged from the first one.\u00a0 As he warned a Harvard Medical School Grand Rounds session in September, reported Newsweek <\/em>on 9\/11, \u201cI just think we need to hunker down and get through this fall and winter because it\u2019s not going to be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is Donning a Mask a Holy Task?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Regarding face masks, which increasingly appear to be our current collective version of Linus\u2019 security blanket, Fauci\u2019s stance has also varied depending, well, on what mask he was wearing at the time. \u201cNo, right now, people should not be wearing \u2014 there\u2019s no reason to be walking around with a mask,\u201d the physician told CBS\u2019\u00a060 Minutes<\/em>\u00a0on March 8. \u201cWhen you\u2019re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet. But it\u2019s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,\u201d he elaborated. \u201cAnd often there are unintended consequences; people keep fiddling with the mask, and they keep touching their face.\u201d<\/p>\n

A couple of months later in early May, however, Fauci recommended during Senate testimony that people wear masks whenever they can\u2019t socially distance. You should get \u201csome sort of a covering,\u201d said he, citing a CDC recommendation. But here\u2019s the kicker: Explaining his reversal, Fauci said, \u201cBack then we were concerned we would be taking masks away from the healthcare providers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"shrinking<\/figure>\n
\n

The incredible shrinking social distance: <\/strong>Fauci gave new meaning to \u201cgame of inches\u201d when he was caught at a July baseball game up close and personal and unmasked. PR-wise, it wasn\u2019t exactly a home run. (Photo: AP Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This apparent deception raises a question: If Fauci was lying then, how can we be sure he isn\u2019t lying now? Whatever the case, by late May Fauci had done a complete 180 and said\u00a0that everybody should wear a mask in public, that he wears one as a \u201csymbol\u201d of right action, and that it shows \u201crespect for another person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Note that the doctor would later be caught on video July 23 at Nationals Park stadium in Washington, D.C., neither social distancing nor wearing a mask.<\/p>\n

A Shot in the Dark?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Injecting more confusion, Fauci has also changed his tune on vaccines. After Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar made a fear-assuaging statement on March 3 to the effect that rapid progress was being made on developing a vaccine, Fauci chimed in to \u201c\u2018caution everybody\u2019 that what Azar described is only the first phase of the development of the vaccine,\u201d reported Business Insider<\/em> at the time. \u201cThe whole process is going to take a year, a year and a half, at least,\u201d Fauci said, definitively, while standing a few feet from President Trump (unmasked!).<\/p>\n

Yet addressing a question about biotech company Moderna\u2019s developments while speaking to NPR May 22, Fauci said, \u201cI think it is conceivable \u2026 that we could have a vaccine that we could be beginning to deploy at the end of this calendar year \u2014 December 2020 or into January 2021.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s understandable that such projections could change. But as ancient Chinese sage Confucius wrote, \u201cWisdom is, when you know something, knowing that you know it; and when you do not know something, knowing that you do not know it.\u201d Fauci will turn 80 this December, and he has been with the NIAID for 52 years. He should know that medical advances are complicated, hard-to-predict matters. He should also know that there\u2019s nothing wrong with uttering certain three words: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consider also what I omitted with an ellipsis from Fauci\u2019s May 22 statement. To wit: We can have a vaccine by year\u2019s end \u201cif we don\u2019t run into things that are, as they say, unanticipated setbacks.\u201d It\u2019s notable that the doctor included a qualifier with his good news (as he should), but was definitive when delivering fear-inducing bad news.<\/p>\n

As an aside, completely unacknowledged by Fauci is that the vaccine search may be a fool\u2019s errand, anyway. As the\u00a0Atlantic\u2019s<\/em>\u00a0James Hamblin related in February, \u201c\u2018If we\u2019re putting all our hopes in a vaccine as being the answer, we\u2019re in trouble,\u2019 Jason Schwartz, an assistant professor at Yale School of Public Health who studies vaccine policy, told me. The best-case scenario, as Schwartz sees it, is the one in which this vaccine development happens far too late to make a difference for the current outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Protest Over Prayer?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI feel like we are living in a George Orwell novel.\u201d So said an Internet commenter in June, in reference to the politicians who encouraged Black Lives Matter protesters\/rioters to hit the streets, but placed COVID-19 restrictions on everyone else. Grilled about such contradictions July 31 while testifying before the House of Representatives, Fauci was asked by Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) \u201cif he thought the government should crack down on [BLM] protests similar to how the government has banned churches from congregating or businesses from operating,\u201d reported Daily Wire at the time. \u201cAfter admitting that crowds of people increase the chance of spreading the disease, Fauci demurred on whether the government should ban protests.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\"virus<\/figure>\n
\n

A \u201cwoke\u201d virus:<\/strong> Politicians\u2019 schizoid restrictions make sense if you believe SARS-CoV-2 will infect churchgoers, small business owners, college students, and gym attendees but not throngs of left-wing activists. Perhaps the virus was seen under a microscope wielding a BLM sign. (Photo: AP Images)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

For example, Jordan pressed Fauci and said, \u201cWell, you make all kinds of recommendations. You make comments on dating, on baseball, on everything you can imagine. I\u2019m just asking, you just said protests increase the spread. I\u2019m just asking, should we try to limit the protest?\u201d (In fact, the doctor didn\u2019t shrink from providing specificity in mid-July, when he recommended closing bars.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I would leave that to people who have more of a position to do that,\u201d was Fauci\u2019s evasive response.<\/p>\n

Yet Fauci\u2019s perhaps most striking moment was when Jordan asked, pressing the bureaucrat, \u201cSo you\u2019re allowed to protest millions of people on one day in crowds yelling, screaming, but you try to run your business you get arrested? And if you stood right outside that same business and protested you wouldn\u2019t get arrested? You don\u2019t see an inconsistency there?\u201d Fauci refused to acknowledge the obvious contradiction and instead stated, \u201cI don\u2019t understand what you are asking me as a public health official to opine on who should get arrested or not. That\u2019s not my position. You can ask as much as you want and I\u2019m not going to answer it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t Shake Hands!<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Then there are the Fauci contradictions that truly raised eyebrows. On a Wall Street Journal<\/em> podcast April 7, the man who once said Americans needn\u2019t change their behavior stated that he didn\u2019t think they \u201cshould ever shake hands ever again.\u201d But then a week later, April 14, he said in a Snapchat Good Luck America interview that it was okay to have sex with a stranger you meet via a dating app if \u201cyou\u2019re willing to take a risk \u2014 and you know, everybody has their own tolerance for risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet this raises a question: Why the lockdowns then? Isn\u2019t everything \u2014 from visiting hair salons and gyms and restaurants and parks to shaking hands \u2014 a matter of \u201cif you\u2019re willing to take a risk\u201d?<\/p>\n

Gods of the Moving Goalposts<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Even more striking, perhaps, is how the criteria for returning to post-pandemic normalcy have consistently changed as soon as they were met. First we were told that we needed to stay \u201clocked down\u201d for two weeks, or perhaps somewhat longer, to \u201cflatten the curve\u201d and ensure the healthcare system wasn\u2019t overloaded. \u201cIn many respects, it\u2019s not whether the situation is going to get worse\u00a0but how quickly,\u201d\u00a0wrote\u00a0USA Today<\/em>\u00a0March 11, pointing out that the total number of people infected may end up being the same. \u201cIn flattening the curve, the goal is not so much to reduce the total number of people getting sick but to slow the rate at which they do,\u201d the paper later emphasized. USA Today<\/em> also quoted Emily Gurley, an associate scientist in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, as saying, \u201cOur best guess is that most people are going to get this virus at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

The healthcare system was never overwhelmed, however, and the models showing it could be \u2014 even those factoring in mitigation efforts \u2014 were revealed as gravely flawed.\u00a0This was when lockdown justification B was put forth as if A had never existed. To wit: We were told that a state should experience a \u201cdecline in cases over a 14-day period\u201d before reopening, as NBC News related it April 28.<\/p>\n

Next we moved on to Justification C, which was that \u201cwe will be facing rolling waves of restrictions and shutdowns until we have a vaccine,\u201d as Scientific American<\/em> put it July 18. Now we have Justification D, the Mother of All Justifications: We can never return to normalcy.<\/p>\n

As World Health Organization Director-General\u00a0Tedros\u00a0Adhanom Ghebreyesus proclaimed during a news conference from the agency\u2019s Geneva headquarters, \u201cWe will not, we cannot go back to the way things were,\u201d CNBC reported August 21. \u201cThroughout history, outbreaks and pandemics have changed economies and societies,\u201d the outlet writes, summarizing his message.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018In particular, the Covid-19 pandemic has given new impetus to the need to accelerate efforts to respond to climate change,\u2019 Ghebreyesus said,\u201d CNBC continued. \u201cThe Covid-19 pandemic has given us a glimpse of our world as it could be: cleaner skies and rivers.\u201d How this will stop China from releasing deadly viruses from its labs was not explained.<\/p>\n

As for Fauci, being our federal point man on the pandemic and its management\u2019s face, it would\u2019ve helped if he\u2019d provided a steady hand and message to help negotiate this orchestrated confusion.<\/p>\n

So what drives Fauci? For one thing, he\u2019s a career bureaucrat showing no signs of wanting to retire, and, hey, you don\u2019t get to work in government under nine presidents without \u201cplaying the game\u201d \u2014 and the game isn\u2019t science. Just consider how Fauci ingratiates himself to the powerful, having once concluded an adoring 2012 e-mail sent to Hillary Clinton by way of her aide\/lawyer Cheryl Mills with, \u201cPlease tell the Secretary that I love her more than ever[,] you guys too, of course. Best regards, Tony.\u201d (The next Clinton \u201clove letter\u201d was signed \u201cWarm regards.\u201d) But that the doctor loves the camera even more and apparently craves attention are also troubling. I believe Fauci may be a narcissist, a man who craves the feeling of being listened to and considered intellectual; he may revel in sounding authoritative and in command and be willing to say anything to effect that image at the moment. In fact, one could get the feeling that, deep down, he has an emotional vested interest in perpetuating the pandemic and, with it, his 15 minutes of fame.<\/p>\n

Making it permanent may not be hard, either. Not only did Fauci co-author an August 15 report stating that the China virus \u201cshould force us to begin to think in earnest and collectively about living in more thoughtful and creative harmony with nature\u201d \u2014 but he also said in July that he didn\u2019t think the coronavirus would ever be eradicated.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the simplest analysis of Fauci, however, was provided by Dr. Knut Wittkowski, former longtime head of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design at the Rockefeller University in New York City. Wittkow-ski warned early on that lockdowns were misguided, saying that herd immunity and the virus\u2019 eradication could be achieved in weeks with the right policy. When asked to explain why Fauci would nonetheless prescribe lockdowns and warn of life disruptions lasting years, Wittkowski replied, \u201cWell, I\u2019m not paid by the government, so I\u2019m entitled to actually do science.\u201d<\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/thenewamerican.com\/magazine\/tna3620\/page\/91715<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Many Masks of Anthony Fauci<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}