It looks like the self-professed human embodiment of science is also full of you-know-what.
Ahead of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s public testimony Monday before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Republicans released a transcript of their January sit-down with the pandemic poobah.
And, boy, was it revelatory.
In it, he essentially admitted major parts of his prescription for the public were not, in fact, backed by science — in particular, masking children and the social-distancing mandate of six feet as the magic mitigator.
The former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director, who retired in December 2022 after decades at the helm, was pressed on how the six-foot standard came to be.
“You know, I don’t recall,” he said. “It sort of just appeared.”
Asked if he recalled any studies that supported it, he said: “I was not aware of studies that … in fact would be a very difficult study to do.”
Maybe someone just liked the number six?
As for recalling any data that supported masks for children as young as 2, Fauci was unable to definitively say.
“I might have … but I don’t recall specifically that I did,” he said.
“Was there ever a cost-benefit analysis done on the unintended consequences of masking kids versus the protection that it would give them?” a committee staff member asked him.
Fauci’s reply: “Not to my knowledge.”
So he was just spitballing some of this — while simultaneously telling “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd in 2021 that criticism of him was “really attacking not only Dr. Anthony Fauci, you are attacking science.”
In Monday’s hearings, Rep. Brad Wenstrup from Ohio got to the heart of our anger with Fauci.
“Americans were aggressively bullied, shamed and silenced for merely questioning or debating issues such as social distancing, masks, vaccines, or the origins of COVID,” Wenstrup said.
The House committee grilled Fauci on emails from his ex-senior advisor Dr. David Morens that showed Morens used private email to dodge record requests and evade transparency.
In one, Morens wrote: “I learned from our foia [Freedom of Information Act] lady here how to make emails disappear after i am foia’d but before the search starts, so i think we are all safe. Plus i deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to [personal] gmail.”
Fauci said of Morens, “I knew nothing of his actions.”
It seems there were a few consequential things he knew “nothing of.”
In the early weeks of the pandemic, I admired and trusted Fauci — thinking he stood for continuity, experience and restraint. In such an unprecedented time, it felt like having a steady hand at the wheel.
But as two weeks to stop the spread turned into two years of moving the goalposts — and making up different metrics until we could return to normal — it was clear the doctor was developing a God complex. And much of our media became higher clergy genuflecting at every turn.
Many adherents found in Fauci a religious purpose, with a mask and a needle serving as virtue symbols and “trust the science” as their main recitation.
Anyone with questions or objections was a heretic to be shamed.
We were forced to mold our society around these arbitrary and draconian rules. Children’s test scores went down; school absenteeism and depression shot up. Parents who advocated for schools to re-open were ostracized and called “grandma killers.”
The six-foot method shaped our mentality on everything from business to social gatherings, effectively making connections impossible and creating a pandemic of loneliness. People lost their jobs for refusing to get a jab.
And yes, we can also blame American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten and many blue state governors, who were all Fauci’s dutiful disciples.
Personally, I could have dealt with a mis-step or two. Covid-19 was a novel virus, and we were all learning in real time. But there was no humility and no openness from Fauci & Co. — only suppression and control.
It’s ironic now, but in 2021 Fauci actually said to Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation,” “If you damage science, you are doing something very detrimental to society long after I leave. And that’s what I worry about.”
He leaves in his wake a tidal wave of American distrust in institutions. And an absolutely inability to see his role in dissolving that trust.
