At every opportunity, Anthony Fauci hid the truth about COVID, masks, from the American public
Six and a half years after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and after years of most in the media and the political class pretending it never happened, our response to the spread of the coronavirus is back in the news. All thanks to the not-so-fearless leader of our pandemic policy making, former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Anthony Fauci.
Fauci spent years, starting in early 2020 and beyond, as the center of attention in the United States and beyond. And boy did he know it and revel in it. Promoted by the media as a star "expert," an unbiased keeper of all scientific knowledge, and made into a celebrity thanks to his obvious political leanings and anti-Trump messaging, Fauci became beloved. Just ask him.
The release of his diaries though, revealed some thoroughly discrediting and upsetting details about Fauci's private beliefs.
He knew that lockdowns weren't working, saying that cases seemed to rise and fall regardless of what was closed and when. He knew that there was no justification for masking other than "everyone else is doing it already," and a desire to fit in with the CDC. He knew that COVID-19 vaccines weren't stopping the spread, and even worried about getting infected at an event that required proof of vaccination to attend. He was in communication with important media figures like CNN's Jake Tapper or Dana Bash, or in Tapper's case, described a budding friendship and dinner parties during the early part of the pandemic.
But it's not just his diaries. We now have some texts, released by Sen. Ron Johnson, that indicate he was privately concerned about COVID-19 vaccine side effects and thought they were worth investigating. And alerting his partners in the Biden administration, who concurred.
In one already-infamous newly released text, Fauci said that the COVID-19 vaccine "theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester."
Sen. Rand Paul, one of Fauci's harshest government critics, addressed that new release in a post on X.
"Once again, Anthony Fauci was saying one thing in public and something completely different in private," he said. "He was willing to put women and their unborn children at risk instead of admitting that he was wrong about the vaccines that he tried guilting Americans into taking."
But even that buries the lede: not only was Fauci saying something different in public and private, he went on television, with his buddies, and described anyone who raised such concerns as dangerous conspiracy theorists.
Thus far, there isn't a lot of high-quality evidence that the COVID-19 vaccine is associated with increased risk of miscarriage. Despite some big numbers being floated around on social media, most research has not found an elevated risk relative to normal rates. That's not the point though. The point is that nobody was allowed to talk about it.
When you limit conversation, when you make public statements of confirmation that everything's safe, effective, and there's nothing to see here, you risk losing trust if there is a legitimate concern to investigate. And there were legitimate concerns, even if not about miscarriages.
Myocarditis was ignored, downplayed, or ultimately dismissed. There were side effects that affected significant numbers of people. Fauci, clearly, privately believed that some of these issues necessitated investigation. While publicly saying something completely different, and implying the public shouldn't even be able to have those concerns or discussions.
Importantly, it wasn't just vaccine side effects that was dishonest about. And one of his emails undermines his later messaging on masking too.
When Fauci joined 60 Minutes in February 2020, he specifically stated that there was "no reason to be walking around with a mask."
Even more importantly, he said that masks do not provide the type of protection people think they do, that they might block a droplet or two, but could even backfire since people touch their faces more when wearing a mask.
That was all true and correct. Masks don't work, they don't provide protection, they do touch their face more frequently, and nobody needed to wear them. Obviously, however, Fauci changed his story months later. Masks become the single most important thing you could do, to the point where "wear a mask" became one of the most important phrases of 2020, according to CBS at the time.
Yet in a rare instance of even moderately difficult questioning posed to the saint-like Fauci, when asked about later, he defended his flip flop by saying he was lying to protect supply for healthcare workers. And didn't know about asymptomatic COVID-19 spread at the time.
"I don't regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm's way every day to take care of sick people," Fauci said in an interview with Norah O'Donnell.
"When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don't know they're infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks," he added.
Putting aside that it's a monumental lie to claim that health providers would order PPE and masks from Amazon, like the public, and that cloth masks are not what health providers use, it's revealing that he claims his flip flop in April 2020 was based on learning about asymptomatic spread.
Except, that's also a lie. And we know it, because of what Fauci wrote in an email.
On January 30, 2020, Fauci wrote, "Another amazing and difficult day." He went on to describe what he'd learned about the spread of the virus, including this important note:
"Mart Cetron who was listening in on the WHO call said that the epidemic was accelerating that this is was clear that the incubation period was shorter (2-5 days than was previously felt and that asymptomatic transmission was occurring.)"
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Ah. Interesting. So in January 2020, Fauci knew that asymptomatic transmission was happening, because he'd been told that by someone listening in on a call with the World Health Organization. In February 2020, he went on 60 Minutes and said that nobody needed to wear masks because they don't work. In April 2020, he changed his mind and says everyone should be wearing masks. Then later in 2020, he tells CBS that he changed his mind on recommending masks because of asymptomatic transmission.
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Spectacular, historic, inexcusable dishonesty. He knew in January that asymptomatic spread was happening. He still said masks didn't work and weren't necessarily the following month. Then when asked to justify his change of heart, he lies again and says it's because he learned about asymptomatic spread, after telling the public not to wear masks. A malicious, vindictive, prolific series of lies.
As always, the more we learn about Anthony Fauci, the worse he looks. His primary goal wasn't serving and helping the public, or accurately communicating risks, trade-offs, or uncertainty. It was promoting himself and misleading Americans to service his own agenda. That's his real legacy, and why trust in public health has never been lower.