PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS:

Shot: Dr. Anthony Fauci on what Americans can do to limit pandemic’s harm:

Judy Woodruff: Speaking of spring break, there has been conflicting advice to Americans this week in different states about whether schools should be closed or open, day care centers.

What is your best advice on that right now?

Anthony Fauci: You know, it really varies from location to location.

And you want to listen to the local — state and local health authorities. But you also would hope that they are looking at the guidelines that are coming from the federal level, because they are only guidelines. They say you should. They don’t say you must.

But they should at least be looked at. So, clearly, in certain circumstances, particularly in areas where there’s community spread, the schools should be closed.

—PBS News Hour, March 20th, 2020.

Chaser: Fauci: School Shutdowns Something ‘I Had Nothing to Do With.’

[ABC’s Jonathan Karl] interjected, “But much less than the older population obviously.” Despite the fact that children faces significantly lower risk of developing severe health complications after contracting Covid-19, they were forced to mask in schools for nearly two years. New York City only recently dropped its mask mandate for public pre-school and daycare kids.

Fauci reminded Karl that he, allegedly, repeatedly urged school districts to keep schools open as long as possible. “No one plays that clip. They always say ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with it]. I mean, let’s get down to the facts,” he asserted.

As late as September 2020, Fauci recommended that schools only open back up once the virus is “under control,” he told CNN at the time.

Fauci said in August that he plans to step down from his role as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in December, concluding many decades in government.

—NRO, today.

Fauci can’t step down fast enough. As James Meigs explored last month: Why Fauci Became a Bobblehead. 

Fauci seems to have concluded that he is synonymous with science itself. “It’s easy to criticize,” he complained on Face the Nation last year, “but they’re really criticizing science because I represent science.” Note to reader: No one “represents” science. Science is a radically transparent system of inquiry, debate, and a willingness to challenge received wisdom. As soon as any individual claims the authority to speak for science as a whole, that person is doing the opposite of science.

Today, there is reason to believe that Covid-19, as devastating as it was, did less damage to our society than our ham-fisted overreaction to the disease. Fauci and his public health colleagues were enthusiastic cheerleaders for the policies that inflicted this damage. The social, medical, and economic aftershocks will reverberate for decades to come. It’s tempting to lay the blame here all on Fauci, to assume that his personal moral shortcomings created this mess. I don’t think that’s right. By all accounts, Fauci is a well-meaning official who really believes he’s doing what’s best for the country. But so what? Well-intentioned people can do just as much damage as malevolent ones, sometimes more.

No. The real problem here is power. Fauci simply has had far too much of it for far too long. When the Good Saint Anthony retires in a few months, this administration (or, more likely, one that follows) would be smart to ensure that the next NIAID director operates on a much shorter leash. We would all do well to recognize that appointing “czars” in times of crisis always backfires in the end. And it’s fundamentally un-American.

Flashback: Fauci and other health ‘experts’ are messing up monkeypox just as they did COVID, Ebola and AIDS.