United States rock bottom in world ranking of pandemic response

Sorry for the typo, I meant he made some mistakes, not make.

He did botch the mask issue. But he was accountable. He said in an interview on CBC, I think (there was even an YouTube clip of it that has criculated here) that he understands that he lied and he regrets it. He said he had good intentions when he lied, which is true (and the road to Hell is paved with them, and you know that I've spoken against this lie many times, and I said that squandering the trust in the middle of a pandemic did more harm than any run to N95 masks in terms of compromizing healthcare workers; so you and I don't really disagree that much; not to forget, the initial scarcity of N95s was caused much more by China gobbling up their own domestic production and not honoring export contracts than by any popular run to the masks - the fix was beefing up US domestic production, not lying to the public).

Fauci said it too, that he realized that the cause of the scarcity wasn't what he was trying to avoid. What he is saying now, that N95s should be preferentially for healthcare workers, but the public should double-mask with a good quality procedure mask underneath a cloth mask with good fit so that the cloth mask tucks in the plrocedure mask avoiding a lot of airflow that goes in from outside of the filtration material, actually makes sense. There was a study with mannequin heads showing 96% filtration from the use of a good procedure mask efficiently tucked in by a good cloth mask, effectively mimicking an N95 mask. While cloth masks in themselves are close to useless, paired with a procedure mask in this way, is a technique that actually does result in rather good protection.

In my opinion (and yours), transparent and truthful advice is a big asset in a public health crisis, and he did botch it. But like I said, his mistakes aren't that numerous. Some of them are mistakes that everybody made given the novelty of this virus. Some of them were boneheaded. But the overwhelming majority of what Dr. Fauci has said and continues to say, is made of stuff that makes sense. He is, no doubt, competent and talented.

Ultimately he is a politician - if you think of his surviving so many different administrations. And politicians lie. Still, most of the time, his voice was a rare display of sanity in an administration that was preaching chloroquine and internal use of disinfectant and UV lights.

Much worse than Dr. Fauci was the evil, self-centered sociopath who was his boss for four years. I'm sure that Fauci thought of resigning... but likely thought that if he did, Trump's protegé Scott Atlas would finish taking over and the American people would suffer even more. Someone needed to soldier on to avoid even bigger catastrophes. It's similar to Pat Cipolonne. I'm sure he was sick and tired of Trump and about to resign (at one point there rumors that he would) but thought that someone should still try to rein Trump in.

Fauci spoke against chloroquine. He spoke against Scott Atlas' junk science around the herd immunity issue. He spoke against prematurely trashing epidemiological precautions. He is now speaking against trashing prudence just because of vaccines, in the presence ot the looming threat of new variants. So, overall, the balance is positive. He said more correct things than lies. For a politician, that's not so bad.

This said, I agree that both Fauci and the CDC should be saying to the public "go ahead and obtain good American-made N95s; they are actually available now - if you can't find them, here are some sources, and if you can't afford them or won't wear them, then at least double mask with a good procedure mask underneath a cloth mask that has good fit."

 

I’m not aware of his apology for lying. I would appreciate a link. The problem was his good intentions were in direct violation of known tenets of virology and epidemiology. The good intentions excuse is something children use to justify bad behavior, not public health experts responsible for the life or death of 300+ million people. I have posted an interview from July where he makes further untrue statements to excuse the lie about Americans not needing to wear masks early when they would have been most effective at stopping or slowing the pandemic. In that interview he stated he didn’t know the virus “could” spread asymptomatically or presymptomatically which is untrue. Asian countries were masking based on real time information, historical data from mask efficacy from SARS1, and widely known information about propensity for all respiratory viruses to spread asymptomatically and presymptomatically to varying degrees, often based on unknown factors that can be heterogeneous over time and geographical locations even for same strain viruses.

In that same interview in July, he also stated cloth masks were as good as medical grade masks—in direct conflict with evidence pre-pandemic and developing evidence at the time.

I agree with the protective ability of paired masks if done properly. But we both know the more complicated you make something the more human error diminishes efficacy in everyday use scenarios. With the supplies of good masks we have today, double masking is not correct advice from a public health standpoint.

I don’t think his missteps were boneheaded. He’s an intelligent epidemiologist. His lies were intentional false statements, not mistakes. Mistakes I would forgive. Intentional lies covered up for months with more lies is not.

Yes, a politician who should be held to the same standard on honesty as Trump or anyone else. And you know the UV light and disinfectant comments are misrepresented. I find it interesting those questions/comments by a real estate developer are excoriated but Fauci’s outright lies by a world class epidemiologist in denial of epidemiology that are directly responsible for deaths up to this day are overlooked because of politics.

I’m sorry, I don’t judge people who’s lies are responsible for deaths and economic destruction by the other good things they have done. Or by them being better than some alternative. If I did, I would be a Trump supporter because of the excellent work he did on trade for my business. If you or I were as dishonest as Fauci has been we would be unemployed. We must not let politicians have a pass just because they are politicians or did something good. We can judge actions independently, but we must be honest about each independent action and be willing to mete out consequences when actions are grievous. Instead of consequences, Fauci has been rewarded by Biden. The Biden who wants to follow science exclusively has retained as chief counsel a man who deliberately denied science on multiple occasions. This is not OK on so many levels.

Furthermore, we can’t excuse independent actions like Fauci’s mask lies (and others) based on someone else being “worse”. Fauci’s lies are completely independent of the existence or beliefs of Atlas or others.

Agree with the caveat the Biden administration should begin subsidizing the purchase of US N95’s for the less fortunate. If government is going to heavily involve itself financially in the pandemic this is a “must”.

 

Agreed, good post.
Did you see the breaking news today that they found a warehouse in Maryland with 10 million counterfeit N95 masks?

 

You got hat completely wrong.

Just read the statistic from the bottom and the US is nearly at the top, in the top 5.

I mean, winning, nearly medal position.

 

The one thing we should never forget.
Nobody who lives today has gone through a pandemic like that

Even after a year its a fluent situation.

Fauci said this and that, he is learning a real pandemic on the fly.
Before that it was academical study.
Naturally he said things or advised things that were not top notch.
We learn and find out what we said yesterday, was not top notch.

 

Goodness! Who do they belong to? I’ll google it...

 

No names of the guilty party but they say counterfeits did end up in the hands of healthcare workers. That really ticks me off. I would think an attempted murder charge would be fitting. Thank God many healthcare workers are now vaccinated!

 

Letting your patients suffer and die for free instead of charging them to save them will move you to the top of most of the world ranking lists when it comes to these sorts of things.

 

German mask profiteering scandal rocks Merkel’s party as elections loom
Lawmakers tender their resignations, and the Christian Democrats are dropping in polls as a once-lauded coronavirus response falters.
By Loveday Morris