As a trove of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s e-mails have been made public, it is now undeniable that the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has consistently lied to, deliberately misled, and otherwise scammed the American people about nearly everything related to COVID-19. In the words of Stanford epidemiologist Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Fauci’s “credibility is entirely shot.”
For the past 15 months, Fauci’s name has been nearly synonymous with COVID-19. One is rarely mentioned without the other. This is perhaps fitting, since before March 2020, very few people had ever heard of COVID or Fauci. The bureaucrat’s entire rise to fame, and his grip on power are both intricately tied to the COVID “pandemic.”
Even prior to the release of e-mails under a Freedom of Information Act request, skeptical Americans had spent more than a year watching Fauci waffle on one issue after another that concerned COVID. His go-to excuse and justification was always that “the science has evolved” and he was simply “following the science.” What the e-mails have provided is irrefutable proof that Fauci has been spouting nonsense, while ignoring the “science” he claimed to be following.
On Sunday, Laura Ingraham’s Fox News segment, The Ingraham Angle Medicine Cabinet weighed in on the topic. One panelist was Stanford University epidemiologist and professor Bhattacharya. After pointing out that Fauci has “been all over the place on masks,” and that his hard-line policy of mandating that almost everyone wear a mask almost everywhere almost all the time “made absolutely no sense” according to science, Bhattacharya said, “I think his credibility is entirely shot.”
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Bhattacharya’s assertion is backed by what he called a “treasure trove” of e-mails to and from Fauci in 2020. Those e-mails indicate that far from “following the science,” Fauci was following the prevailing political winds. For instance, Bhattacharya points to Fauci e-mails that ignore established scientific understanding of how viruses can be transmitted. “There are emails you can find in the treasure trove of emails that have been released where he acknowledged the virus has been aerosolized,” Bhattacharya said, adding, “Well, the cloth masks people have been recommending, they’re not particularly effective against aerosolized viruses.”
In a February 2020 e-mail to Sylvia Burwell (presumed to be Obama’s former secretary of Health and Human Services), Fauci recommended that she not wear a mask to the airport while traveling:
Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out a virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keeping out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you. I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low-risk location.
Let that sink in. Fauci told Burwell that an airport was a “very low risk location” that did not require a mask. Within weeks, he flip-flopped to saying wear a mask everywhere at all times when in public because masks provide protection from the constant risk of exposure to COVID-19.
Adding to the confusing and ever-changing message from Fauci as to the quintessential question, “To mask or not to mask?” — Fauci told CNN (in a clip played by Fox News during the Ingraham segment), “If we knew then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside of a hospital setting actually do work when we didn’t know it then, of course people would have done it, that’s so obvious.”
Oh, right.
Except that as Bhattacharya pointed out, the science “didn’t really change a ton” in the time between Fauci telling Burwell not to wear a mask since an airport was a “very low risk location” and him telling everyone to wear a mask all the time nearly everywhere. Bhattacharya went on to say, “Yes, you should change your mind when the science changes.” But he followed by asking, “What is that science that changed that convinced him that masks are the most effective way?” And while many have asked that question, it is worth noting that Bhattacharya is an epidemiologist — and therefore understands the science.
It appears the only “science” Fauci has been following is political science.
While the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has expressed confidence in Fauci, it also appears as if that confidence is rooted in politics, not scientific understanding.
Because the Fauci e-mails also show that he pooh-poohed a warning from National Institute of Health scientist Kristian Andersen on January 31, 2020, that the Wuhan coronavirus looked “potentially engineered” — or manipulated in a lab through gain-of-function research funded by Fauci’s department. It now appears to be a clear-cut case of political maneuvering. For instance, Fauci told reporters at the White House on April 18, 2020 — almost three months after that warning from Anderson — that there was no way the virus came from a lab. At the time of his unequivocal denial of a lab leak, his statement was reported as the debunking of a crazy conspiracy theory.
Another e-mail dated March 18, 2020 — this one from physicist Erik Nilsen — Fauci was warned about Beijing’s covering up the actual number of COVID deaths in China. In response, Fauci e-mailed colleague Robert Eisinger that the e-mail was “too long for me to read.”
There are many bombshells in the Fauci e-mails, which are continuing to be widely reported, but suffice it to say that Bhattacharya’s statement that Fauci’e “credibility is shot” is an extreme understatement.
The evidence points to Fauci and his Democrat handlers weaponizing the fear and uncertainty they themselves created about both the virus and the proper ways to address it — and to date, it appears their motivations were purely political.
