by Ed Driscoll
Dr. Fauci and the Covid Rule of Experts.
Fauci’s influence was all the greater because he had an echo chamber in the press corps and among public elites who disdained and ostracized dissenters.
A flagrant example was Dr. Fauci’s refusal even to consider that the novel coronavirus had originated in a lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. This may have been because the NIH had provided grant money to the nonprofit EcoHealth Alliance, which helped fund “gain of function” virus research at the Wuhan lab. In a semantic battle with Republicans, Dr. Fauci denied that the NIH funded such research. But his refusal even to consider the possibility that the virus started in a Wuhan lab showed that Dr. Fauci was as much a politician as a scientist.
Worse, Dr. Fauci smeared the few brave scientists who opposed blanket lockdowns and endorsed a strategy of “focused protection” on the elderly and those at high risk. This was the message of the Great Barrington Declaration authors, and emails later surfaced showing that Dr. Fauci worked with others in government to deride that alternative so it never got a truly fair public hearing.
“There needs to be a quick and devastating published take down of its premises,” NIH Director Francis Collins wrote to Dr. Fauci. Their inability to abide criticism and dissent undermined the U.S. pandemic response.
“It’s easy to criticize, but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science. That’s dangerous,” Dr. Fauci said last November, in a comment that summarizes the view of the public-health clerisy. The public is supposed to let a few powerful men and women define science and then impose their preferred policies and mandates on the country.
The costs of that mindset have been severe, and not merely economic. We know now that states that locked down fared no better, and sometimes worse, than those that didn’t. We also know that the vaccines, while invaluable against serious disease, don’t prevent the spread of Covid—even after multiple boosters. More honest candor would have been better for America’s trust in public-health authorities.
“Whether you’ve met him personally or not, he has touched all Americans’ lives with his work,” President Biden said Monday about Dr. Fauci’s resignation. That’s true enough. But his legacy will be that millions of Americans will never trust government health experts in the same way again.
I can’t say I blame them after the last two and a half years.
Earlier: Roger Simon: Say Goodbye to Experts (Mostly).
THE ANTHONY FAUCI STORY: Single Point of Failure.
We May Never See Another Lifelong Public Servant Like Anthony Fauci.