Dr. Anthony Fauci said in a new interview that the government “botched” parts of its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, saying that politics interfered with a unified national response.
The health director, who is set to retire before the year’s end, said that the government should have adopted commercial testing and recommended masks earlier in the pandemic. Mask guidelines became unclear early in the pandemic as Fauci had originally stated that masks would do little to protect from the virus, and then said that masks should be reserved for health officials only, as there was at one point a global shortage in health equipment.
“We didn’t know masks worked outside of the hospital setting. There was supposedly a shortage of good masks for the people who were taking care of individuals,” Fauci told Evan Smith, CEO of The Texas Tribune, on Thursday.
“Knowledgeable evidence and data evolve and as it evolves, you have to be flexible enough to change, and that’s what science is all about.”
Fauci said that closing schools were a “difficult decision” but said that students’ loss of education and socializing was “worth it” to flatten the curve.
The Fauci Effect recipe:
-Combine equal parts narcissism, hubris, elitism, psychopathy, and fecal matter.
-Pour into tiny man desperate for you to forget about how he botched AIDS/HIV and COVID.
-Watch society suffer.
-Enjoy.pic.twitter.com/CrSAoPNEuQ— Kevin Dalton (@KevinForBOS) August 12, 2022
The New York Post reports that “His comments came following a Department of Education report that school closures and virtual learning policies led to notable declines in students’ reading and math performance.”
“It was the right decision at the time and it did have collateral consequences. No one can deny that keeping children out of school has a negative impact on the children,” Fauci said “When there were no vaccines and the hospitals were getting overrun in New York and other places, you really needed to do something to put an abrupt stop to what was going on,” he added.
Fauci also threw some blame at the states, saying “We were having states that refused to recommend vaccines.”
“When you needed to recognize that you’re dealing with a common enemy, at that same time to have such political divisiveness in the country is antithetical to a good public health response.”
Fauci also blasted conservatives, saying that he’s become a “bogeyman to the far right.”
