TRUMP’S BIGGEST MISTAKE WAS NOT FIRING HIM AND DEBORAH BIRX: Fauci’s Fanaticism. Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek rounds up criticism of Fauci’s latest lunacy — Covid restrictions should have been “much, much more stringent” in 2020 — and diagnoses the cause:

Fauci again proves that he has the heart, soul, and mind of a dangerous fanatic. He focuses obsessively on one goal; all other considerations are ignored or treated with disdain. And he has no qualms about using as much coercion as is necessary to further as much as possible his lone goal. When someone attaches value only to one goal, that someone experiences – and can see – no meaningful costs, for even the tiniest further movement toward the full attainment of that goal is by presumption worth whatever that movement costs. No such fanatic should possess any power or influence.

Fauci’s fanaticism contributed to more than 170,000 excess deaths from non-Covid causes during the pandemic in America, many of them among younger and middle-aged adults. In Sweden, meanwhile, there was no excess mortality among people under 70. That’s one of the reasons I cite in nominating Sweden’s Anders Tegnell for a Nobel prize.