America’s infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, appeared on CNN and told Jake Tapper that “obviously” fewer people would have coronavirus if we had shut down the country earlier. He punctuated it by saying there was “push back” to the idea:
Obviously, if we had right from the beginning shut everything down it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.
A full listen to his answers show Dr. Fauci wasn’t aggressively laying blame anywhere, and he repeatedly warned against second guessing. He stated clearly, for example, that comparisons to South Korea were illogical. He admitted that he looks at things from a, “pure health standpoint,” meaning that he doesn’t concern himself with your job or your neighbor’s small business.
But that won’t matter. Cable news will run his word choice for forever: Trump didn’t listen to scientists. Trump didn’t listen to doctors. Trump didn’t want to hurt his precious economy.
That economy has kept millions of Americans healthy – financially and mentally and emotionally. Why shouldn’t it be a part of the larger conversation? And why shouldn’t there be push back, when Dr. Fauci was writing in the New England Journal of Medicine that coronavirus was just a severe case of the flu? It was Dr. Fauci on Newsmax TV saying Americans don’t have to worry about coronavirus. It was the Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, saying your don’t have to wear a mask, only to change course a month later.
Media and politicos listened. It was the New York Times saying coronavirus was no big deal in January. Vox did the same. It was New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio saying go out and enjoy yourself. It was Speaker Nancy Pelosi, at the end of February in San Francisco, telling people to come down to Chinatown. Potential Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden be-clowned himself. Even the Have-Scarf-Will-Travel Dr Deborah Birx has discussed not having accurate date from China, wishing they had been honest with us earlier.
Then, of course, there was the covering for China by the World Health Organization:
If Dr. Fauci doesn’t know by now that his comments will be ripped to pieces, and used in unapologetic sound bites for the media to attack Trump, the administration and anyone who disagrees with them, then he shouldn’t be allowed to do interviews.
Dr. Fauci gave Tapper, CNN and all the media/political apparatchik amazing ammunition. They won’t wait to use it..and they haven’t. From now until November 3rd, all we will hear is “Trump didn’t listen to doctors!” (But only if Joe Biden wins. If Trump wins, it will be the next four plus years of that clearly irrational notion.)
I want Dr. Fauci to be honest. I want the same from media But until he understands that media is not interested in honest conversation but rather vicious retaliation, he should stick to giving his expert opinion to President Trump in the Oval Office, and he should stay off TV.
