Fauci lacks the temperament and judgment to perform the job he has.
Dr. Anthony Fauci turned in yet another dismal Sunday-show performance yesterday. Dismal not just because he was ill-prepared, illogical, and unfocused, but also because he is actively undermining the country’s number one public-health objective, which is to vaccinate as many Americans as possible, as quickly as possible.
Chief among Fauci’s flaws is his penchant for relying upon half-truths instead of hard data to support his prescriptions. Asked by NBC’s Chuck Todd if Fauci has disincentivized vaccination by insisting that the inoculated continue to isolate themselves, Fauci responded like this:
Okay. This is something that as we get more information it’s going to be pulling back that you won’t have to. But currently the reason is that when you get vaccinated, you are clearly diminishing dramatically your risk of getting infected. That’s one of the things we’ve got to make sure everybody understands. You dramatically diminish it. However, what happens is that you might get infected and get absolutely no symptoms, not know you’re infected and then inadvertently go into a situation with vulnerable people. And if you don’t have a mask, you might inadvertently infect them. Now, there’s a small risk of that, but it’s there. The other thing is that there may be variants that are circulating. We know New York area has their own variant, 526. There’s a South African variant. Fortunately for us, Chuck, the 117 variant that is dominant in Europe and in U.K. is also now dominant in the United States. Thank goodness the vaccine works very well against that variant.
I’m glad Fauci is talking up the vaccines, but even this understates their effectiveness. The vaccines nearly eliminate any chance of your contracting the disease — CDC data suggests that only .008 percent of vaccinated Americans have tested positive for coronavirus. Moreover, in the rare event you do catch it, you’re far less likely to spread it. So while it’s technically true that you could conceivably transmit the virus after being vaccinated, there is, practically speaking, no such risk. Fauci fails to cite this information not because he’s unaware of it, but because he wants his advice to vaccinated Americans — not to frequent restaurants or movie theaters, for example — to sound less absurd than it is.
Moreover, Fauci is using his considerable airtime to antagonize the group he should be devoting the most time and energy to persuading. On CNN’s State of the Union, Fauci said of Republicans, “It’s almost paradoxical that on the one hand they want to be relieved of the restrictions, but on the other hand they don’t want to get vaccinated. It just almost doesn’t make any sense.” Of course, the same logic could be used against Fauci, who at once wants the country to be vaccinated and to remain locked-down. But that’s ultimately beside the point, which is that Fauci’s conscious decision to embrace a more partisan role over the course of the pandemic has sunk his credibility with every group except Democrats.
He even went so far as to weigh in on the issue of gun control on Sunday, providing Democrats with political cover by declaring “Myself, as a public health person, I think you can’t run away from that [gun violence]. When you see people getting killed, in this last month it’s just been horrifying what’s happened. How can you say that’s not a public health issue?” This isn’t an area of expertise for Fauci. It’s not why he was dispatched to the morning shows. It’s not germane to the pandemic. And it’s not insightful or enlightening analysis. He responded this way because he understands his fan base, and he likes to cater to it. Unfortunately, such fan service comes at the cost of valuable trust with the rest of the country.
Fauci lacks the temperament and judgment to perform the job he has, and President Biden has a responsibility to stop allowing him to use Sundays as a soapbox for his poorly reasoned personal opinions.