Fauci has shielded himself from criticism by claiming that he is not beholden to politicians and that his recommendations are solely based on the ‘science.’
During Trump’s presidency, Fauci consistently contradicted Trump, including when Trump was attempting to get the US past Covid-19 so that authoritarian lockdowns could be lifted.
It turns out that Fauci, like other government bureaucrats who claim to be apolitical, is willing to tweak his messaging when he is pressured by Democratic politicians and liberal activists.
Last week, Fauci said that the United States was ‘out of the pandemic phase’ and that infections and deaths were at a low level.
“We are certainly right now in this country out of the pandemic phase,” Fauci said. “Namely we don’t have 900,000 new infections a day and tens and tens and tens of thousands of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. We are at a low level right now.”
“So, if you’re saying, are we out of the pandemic phase in this country, we are. What we hope to do, I don’t believe, and I have spoken about this widely, we’re not going to eradicate this virus,” he said. “If we can keep that level very low, and intermittently vaccinate people — and I don’t know how often that would have to be.”
Then, the White House contradicted him, saying that the pandemic ‘isn’t over. Biden clearly intends to milk the pandemic for all its worth with midterms coming up and isn’t willing to let ‘science’ get in the way.
“COVID isn’t over, and the pandemic isn’t over,” Psaki told reporters on Wednesday.
Presumably, Fauci got a private dressing down from the Biden White House after they were forced to contradict him. Yesterday, he walked back his comments and claimed that he only intended to say that the ‘acute’ phase of the pandemic is over.
“I want to clarify one thing,” Fauci told NPR on Wednesday. “I probably should have said the acute component of the pandemic phase, and I understand how that can lead to some misinterpretation.”
It’s great to know that we are basing the science on what a man who can’t even string a coherent sentence together wants it to be.
