Some of the people most strongly associated with promoting lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic have recently sought to recast their positions. Examples include Anthony Fauci, former leader of the federal COVID-19 response, teachers’ union head Randi Weingarten, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Fauci seemed eager to shirk responsibility for the lockdowns when talking to The New York Times last week.
“Show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did,” he said.
It was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that produced the lockdown recommendations, he emphasized.
“I gave a public-health recommendation that echoed the CDC’s recommendation, and people made a decision based on that,” he said, noting that he “happened to be perceived as the personification of the recommendations.”
That perception wasn’t mere happenstance though. Fauci hardly missed an opportunity for a media spotlight, accepting accolades for supposedly leading the country through the crisis.
Fauci boasted in October of 2020 that, early in the pandemic, it was he who recommended that President Donald Trump “shut the country down.”
#Fauci this morning vs Fauci 2020. He hopes you will ignore the blatant lies & adopt his new narrative because it supports your political bias. If you’re vaccinated, I hope you choose what’s true versus what you want to believe – Humanity depends on it. It’s time to unite! We are… pic.twitter.com/tjjdg6ZUks
— Brandon Taylor Moore (@LetsGoBrando45) April 26, 2023
“This was way before” the major outbreak in the New York City area at the onset of the pandemic, he said.
Moreover, Fauci now argues he was appreciative of those who had their reasons for not following the advice of federal public health agencies.
“I never criticized the people who had to make the decisions one way or the other,” he said.
That doesn’t appear to be accurate.
Fauci was repeatedly cited by the media as criticizing states that diverged from federal guidance.
On one occasion he called it “risky” and on another warned of “needless suffering and death” if states lifted COVID-19 restrictions earlier than federal guidelines suggested.
The former pandemic adviser now acknowledges that COVID-19 vaccines were presented to the public in a less-than-ideal way.
“We probably should have communicated better that the clinical trials were only powered to look at the effect on clinically recognizable disease, symptomatic disease,” he told the New York Times.
By Petr Svab
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