Dr. Anthony Fauci made the spotlight again as he sat in front of a closed-door congressional subcommittee last week for questioning on the pandemic response. Fauci made some interesting admissions during his latest testimony. He gave credence to the theory that COVID was engineered and accidentally released from a lab in Wuhan. He conceded that the COVID vaccine mandates that he personally advised likely increased vaccine hesitancy. There was one more interesting admission from Fauci during his testimony. Fauci professed that the six-foot social distancing rule was likely not based on data, and that the social distancing rule "just sort of happened."
According to Fauci's emails that were released by the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Fauci stated in early March 2020 that the purpose of social distancing was "not geared to wait for a vaccine." For Fauci, the goal of social distancing was to "prevent a single person who is infected to readily spread to others." In other words, Fauci had a draconian, zero-Covid approach to pandemic policy. To even attempt such a policy would either require a vaccine or mandatory human separation into perpetuity.
He ran an untested, far-flung theory and had enough clout to thrust it onto the American people, which is ironic coming from the man who said "attacks on me are attacks on science." The six-foot recommendation affected recommendations for capacity limits in establishments, face masks in certain jurisdictions (e.g., Washington, DC; Los Angeles), influenced the decision to implement lockdowns, and was the single largest barrier for re-opening public schools. We had epidemiological knowledge and pandemic recommendations prior to the pandemic that lockdowns were not going to work. As for the six-foot social distancing rule (not to mention school closures), we had evidence early on in the pandemic that the recommendation was not based on science. The following is from the leading medical journal The BMJ in August 2020:
Rigid safe distancing rules are an oversimplification based on outdated science...SARS-CoV-2 transmission [is based on] multiple variables: indoors and outdoors (and, for the former, level of ventilation), room occupancy (low or high), time spent tighter (short or long), vocalization (silent, speaking, shouting, or singing, and masking (yes or no).
What was Fauci doing in August 2020? He was still recommending social distancing of six feet, which was contrary to the science laid out in The BMJ article. Fauci did not fare better as the pandemic proceeded. In November 2020, Fauci recommended social distancing even after getting a vaccine. This is the same Fauci that said in late 2021 that he wanted us to wear masks on airplanes indefinitely, even though best evidence has since shown that face masks are ineffective in slowing down COVID transmission.
Why should we care about Fauci's social distancing recommendation now that the pandemic is over? It is more than a key health official said over 100 times in a single congressional testimony last week that he "did not recall" pertinent information, which is Beltway-speak for covering his tracks. Fauci got a number of key facets wrong during the pandemic, including face masks, herd immunity, lockdowns, school closures, vaccines being able to stop COVID transmission, and now social distancing.
What makes this worse is that the problem goes beyond a single risk-averse octogenarian. As I pointed out last year, former CDC Director Rochelle Walensky did not care about the science of face masks, as well as having been off-base on outdoor COVID transmission, the threat of breakthrough cases, and lockdowns. The Biden Administration also ignored the science on natural immunity.
Why Fauci's testimony is so important after the pandemic is because it shows the systemic failures that not only caused considerable harm to millions of Americans, but have led to the rot within public health agencies. The establishment chose fear and extreme risk-aversion over science and changing their advice as new findings came along. Dissenting opinions were vilified and often suppressed during the pandemic, even though the so-called "conspiracy theorists" were by and large correct. It is little surprise that such politics have rightfully resulted in diminished trust of public health officials.
While it is a step in the right direction that Fauci recognizes the lack of science behind the six-foot rule, we need to ask how we got here and what lessons are to be learned. In the likelihood of a future pandemic, our response must be based on facts and actual science. Otherwise, history will repeat itself and cause immeasurable harm in the name of "Science."
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