Do you believe? Saint Dr. Anthony Fauci, of COVID pandemic fame, has released a new memoir describing his “journey in public service.” To promote the book, he’s been doing some interviews, including one this week on CBS Mornings. During the interview, the host asked Fauci about his recommendations during the pandemic to close the country’s public schools, a situation that lasted for more than a year in some places. In a rare moment of apparent self-awareness, Fauci admitted that closing schools for so long was “not a good idea.” When pressed on the issue, Fauci agreed that, in retrospect, the decision was “a mistake.” He didn’t explicitly express any regret, but it was the closest we’ve come to an honest response from him on this topic so far. (New York Post)
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a top adviser to two presidential administrations during the COVID-19 pandemic, changed course in an interview Tuesday, agreeing that closing schools for more than a year due to the virus was a “ mistake”.
“Keeping it away for a year was not a good idea,” the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) told “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil while discussing his new memoir “On Call: A Doctor’s Journey.” in public service.”
“So it was a mistake in hindsight?” -Dokoupil asked. “Will we not repeat it?”
“Absolutely, yes,” Fauci responded.
This represents a small change from Fauci’s previous statements, including answers he gave during sworn testimony before Congress. He has maintained that closing schools was the right thing to do, although he always phrases his responses with phrases like “based on the best evidence we had at the time.” But now that he has a book to sell and public sentiment has turned so vigorously against him, his tone seems to be changing.
In October 2022, Fauci was telling reporters that it would be inaccurate to call the decision to keep schools closed “a mistake.” He was still basing those original decisions on local transmission rates rather than anticipated impacts on student health.
“I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake,’” Fauci told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl in an October 2022 interview when asked about school closures after announcing his retirement as the House’s chief medical adviser. Blanca and director of the NIAID.
“If I do, it’s taken out of the context of what you’re asking me the question about,” Fauci said. “We should realize, and we have realized, that there will be detrimental collateral consequences when something like this is done.”
The CDC guidelines that were in place in 2020 (and strongly supported by Fauci) were ridiculous. Schools were forced to install hugely expensive air filtration systems and rearrange desks and chairs to enforce “social distancing.” Only later did we learn that Fauci and his friends had invented the whole idea of social distancing out of thin air with absolutely no clinical studies to support its supposed effectiveness. As you may recall, Donald Trump was rejecting those guidelines at the time, but Fauci was fighting him.
I do not agree with @CDCgov about its very strict and expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them to be open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will meet them!!!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2020
In reality, otherwise healthy children were among the least likely to contract COVID and also the least likely to die or experience serious symptoms. The virus could have spread through schools in a largely harmless, flu-like manner, leaving behind a population of children who would have had natural herd immunity. Of course, that was at a time when anyone who dared mention the potential benefits of natural immunity was banned from social media and treated like a pariah, including prominent virology doctors who were trying to support that strategy at the time.
To be clear, the blame cannot fall entirely on Anthony Fauci. COVID was still fairly new back then and no one knew for sure how the virus would spread or evolve. But the thing is, there were leading doctors in the field who were pointing out that COVID didn’t seem to be much worse than the flu and that lockdowns might be doing more harm than good. That debate should have been allowed to develop freely. Instead, naysayers were silenced, we crashed the economy, and delayed the development of a generation of children by at least a year. Anthony Fauci played a big role in all of that and shouldn’t be allowed to shy away from his involvement now simply because he’s trying to sell some books.
