Dr. Anthony Fauci made mistakes, but there is no justification for his prosecution

Here are 10 questionable things Dr. Anthony Fauci did during the pandemic years as America’s COVID-19 czar:

1. He gave conflicting advice about masks to the public: first saying they weren’t necessary, then changing his stance and even wearing one at an outdoor baseball game. Or he wore it intermittently and took it off frequently.
2. In an attempt to reassure the public, he misrepresented the percentage of people who require vaccination to achieve herd immunity (which the United States never achieved).
3. For months, insufficient attention was paid to the importance of aerosol spread of the virus.
4. He downplayed the effects of lockdowns on schools and the economy.
5. He participated in a campaign to discredit scientists who held opposing positions on the management of the pandemic, including the signatories of the Great Barrington Declaration.
6. He gave misleading and non-direct answers about US involvement in research on viral manipulation, so-called gain-of-function research.
7. He dismissed the possibility that a laboratory leak was the source of the coronavirus.
8. He advocated for a 6-foot social distancing policy and then admitted that he knew of no studies to support the rule. There was a scientific basis, but it turned out to be inapplicable to COVID-19.
9. He claimed to be apolitical although he aligned himself with Democrats in his public comments.
10. In the post-COVID-19 review, he showed reluctance to take responsibility for the mistakes he and his team had made.

In Fauci’s defense, there are mitigating circumstances for some of these failures. His advice on masks and his prediction about herd immunity were given early in the pandemic, when information was still preliminary and uncertainty was high. He deserves the benefit of the doubt on those issues, just as he might deserve it when it comes to the 6-foot distancing rule.

He might also deserve to be exempted from discussion of the importance of aerosol spread and the social effects of lockdowns, which were not appreciated by many experts at the time. For the other charges – suppressing public debate, politicising the pandemic as a justification for the excessive use of government authority and its failure to take responsibility – there are no excuses.

His supporters would say that those negative aspects are outweighed by the reassurance he provided to the public and his emphasis on promoting vaccination. That is for each person to decide.

But whatever the verdict, there is no justification for a prosecution or persecution of Fauci. Given the facts we have now, he does not merit a criminal investigation as critics such as business giant Elon Musk and US Senator Rand Paul have suggested. This is not the post-war Soviet Union or East Germany or communist China in the 2020s, where doctors and scientists were prosecuted as political agents and enemies of the state.

We need a thorough investigation into what our scientific elite did during the COVID-19 pandemic, but in the name of open inquiry, not a witch hunt.