A year into pandemic, Fauci under fire for coronavirus policy flip-flops

“Wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better…but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,” said Dr. Fauci in March 2020.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

It was in the year 2020 that presidential public health advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci became one of the most familiar faces on American television.

The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who publicly butted heads with former President Donald Trump, frequently made the media rounds, doling out advice on everything from hand-washing to lockdowns.

But Fauci’s recommendations during the pandemic have been far from consistent.

“Right now, in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci during an early March 2020 interview on 60 Minutes.

“Wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,” he explained.

Just 10 months later, Fauci advised Americans to wear two face masks at once. “If you have a physical covering with one layer, you put another layer on it. Just makes common sense that it likely would be more effective,” he told NBC in January 2021.

Fauci’s flip-flopping on coronavirus policy hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“Why should we trust Fauci with a national plan? Back in March, Fauci famously told Americans, ‘There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask,’” political commentator David Harsanyi wrote in conservative magazine National Review.

The New York Times recently noted that Fauci has been subtly shifting the number of Americans who would need to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity.

When asked by a Times reporter about his inconsistent statements, Fauci admitted to fudging the numbers based on public opinion.

“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%,” he said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.

“We have to have some humility here .. We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90%. But, I’m not going to say 90%.”

In a CNN interview last week, Fauci demurred on whether it was safe for vaccinated grandparents to hug their grandchildren. Right-leaning TV personality Meghan McCain said the clip proved Fauci is unfit for his position.

“I was very frustrated when I saw this,” McCain said, adding that she understands the gravity of the disease. She said she believed Fauci’s reluctance to say vaccines are the first step towards a normal life would discourage people from getting the jab.

“The idea that I can get vaccinated and I won’t be able to see friends and nothing in life changes, and we’re going to have to wear masks forever… I don’t understand the downplaying of getting the vaccine because right now we should be wanting as many Americans as possible to get a vaccine.”

“I’m over Dr. Fauci,” she added. “I think the Biden administration should remove him and put someone else in place that maybe does understand science or can talk to other countries about how we can be more like these places that are doing this successfully.”

McCain wasn’t the only public figure to blast Fauci’s coronavirus policies.

“Dr. Fauci is a very good public health official. His job is to advise policy makers and inform the public,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) tweeted Tuesday.

“But his job is NOT to decide what we can do, where we can go or which places can open or close And his job is NOT to mislead or scare us into doing the ‘right things.’”

Anthony FaucicoronavirusUnited States