COVID Select Subcommittee Releases Dr. Fauci’s Transcript, Highlights Key Takeaways in New Memo

[SimplyMe]

Whatever.

No, you made a straw man that didn't fit what I stated, so you didn't have to tackle what I actual stated.

He was trying to get people, not just Americans, home. That would have included Chinese too going back to China. If he was a racist he would have interned them.

How would it have stopped Chinese from going back to China? On what basis would he have "interned" Chinese who were already in the US?

And it is far quicker for Europeans to fly directly to Europe to China than through the US, so why did they need to fly to the US to get home; particularly since these travelers may have had COVID and infected Americans on their way home? China is a large enough country that it has flights to most areas of the world (such as flights to Canada and Mexico), so why would they need to travel to the US to get home? And, yes, many of the travelers who were "traveling through the US" to get home were Europeans, and other areas that had far shorter direct flights, to get home. There was no reason not to block them, particularly since they were just as "dangerous" (and possibly more, if they had been near Wuhan), in terms of COVID, than Chinese that weren't from the Wuhan area.

 

[rambot]

Fauci's lies, misinformation, and disinformation before Congress and also multiple times to the American people ought NOT go unpunished. Americans are waking up to the lies, and disinformation and misinformation told by Fauci.

To suggest that Fauci is lying you would first have to prove he had BETTER, newer and more robust information at hand and in that present moment. If the research points one way one day and then, a year later, points a different direction, that doesn't mean he LIED at the start. It means that more research clarified results.

I think too many people forget this and label him a liar unnecessarily.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

They're trying to figure out why we had more COVID deaths than most other countries. Easy. Mr. Trump ignored the medical community in favor of quack ideas.

There's a number of reasons for that being the case (some within our control, some not in our direct control)

Chalking it all up to Trump's endorsement of hydroxychloroquine may be a bit of a shallow observation though.

When the vaccine was on the horizon (and became available), Trump took the vaccine, encouraged his followers to do so (and even said he got the booster). It was one of the few things I've actually seen the guy be willing to get booed over by his own crowds. He went as far as doing his usual bragging "taking credit for" it and made it sound as if he was in the lab himself with viles and tubes making them.

Him over-hyping hydroxychloroquine (in a time when there wasn't a vaccine available anyway) can't be blamed for excess deaths due to covid. Had he still been promoting that over the vaccine once the vaccine was available, then you may have a point, but that's not what occurred.


The reasons why the US had excess deaths can be attributed to a couple different things
Collectively speaking:
- Our geography (regional containment isn't as easy when all of the main big city centers have commuter cities within 10 miles away - that would be considered "big cities" by other countries' standards - that people regularly go back and forth between for essential jobs, unlike places like NZ where all of their major cities are spread hours apart from one another). The US has some uniquely big vectors of transmission in that regard.

- Our population density in certain areas (a bunch of people leaving in congested apartments isn't ideal)

- Our demographics (we have certain demographics that were shown to be more susceptible)

- Our climate (we know that outdoors is safer than indoors, 2/3 of the country lives in places where that's not conducive year-round, thus the reason why some African nations - even ones with sub-par healthcare services and leaders promoting actual quack cures somehow faired better than some European and Asian countries that have much better hospitals and had much stricter controls)

- That number that shows up on the scales when people step on it (we have a huge problem with obesity which was a sharp predictor of covid outcomes). While people were waiting around for the vaccine to come out, we know that people who were 350lbs and diabetic were at a much higher risk of hospitalization and death than people within a healthy weight range.

- Poor messaging strategies surrounding the vaccines once they were available. There was some gaslighting surrounding it, and some of the messaging (and mandates) surrounding it was the textbook formula for how to make hesitant people into full blow "anti"/"skeptics".

 

[wing2000]

Did you even attempt to try to take the time to read the transcript of the interview with Fauci?

Fauci's lies, misinformation, and disinformation before Congress and also multiple times to the American people ought NOT go unpunished. Americans are waking up to the lies, and disinformation and misinformation told by Fauci.

Since you have apparently read the transcript, please do share one example of Fauci's "misinformation" or "disinformation"....

 

[Fantine]

Besides promoting quack theories, he refused to wear masks--even when touring a factory where they were required--and held massive rallies, one which killed his friend Herman Cain.
He asked the FDA to ignore safety tests so it would be available "before the election." Talk about election interference! Might not be safe? So what? Vote for Trump! Ugh.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Besides promoting quack theories, he refused to wear masks--even when touring a factory where they were required--and held massive rallies, one which killed his friend Herman Cain.
He asked the FDA to ignore safety tests so it would be available "before the election." Talk about election interference! Might not be safe? So what? Vote for Trump! Ugh.

That's a bit of skewed thinking based on what we know now...

While I didn't support Trump or some aspects of his handling of covid, drudging up things about his request for "fast tracking" the vaccines, and the mask stuff (which we now know weren't nearly as effective as some originally thought they were -- especially the kinds most people were wearing) hardly substantiates your previous statement

Knowing what we know now, had they actually greenlit the vaccines sooner, we probably would've been better off, yes?. (but obviously we didn't know that then). And more people wearing cloth masks (which is the types the experts were telling people to use so that surgical and N95's could be reserved for frontline medical workers) wouldn't have changed the trajectory.


What you're saying basically suggests that the vaccines went from "Too new to be trusted" to "So safe and so well-researched, that we should be discussing mandates for them" in a matter of 4 months?


So to recap, the reasons I listed in my previous post are more compelling explanations for why the US had more deaths per capita than some other places than your explanation of "It's because Trump promoted quackery 12 months prior to vaccine availability, and he refused to wear a mask"


You're basically operating on a position that's predicated on the false assertion that everything we thought we knew in 2020 ended up being right.

It'd be like trying to blame someone for not wiping off their packages from Amazon with alcohol wipes back in 2020, even though we now know that was a pretty pointless effort that didn't make a difference anyway.

 

[GoldenBoy89]

And yet Trump is also a racist for wanting travel restrictions very early on in Covid. Democrats resoundingly said he was being racist for wanting to limit travel from China when that could have made some difference. So which is it? Both?

Trump was already a racist long before that but the idea of trying to tie the spread of the virus with a specific nationality when everything shows the disease was already here and spreading by Americans is pretty much the definition of xenophobia and racism. It wasn’t so much a dog whistle as it was a bullhorn.

 

[rambot]

Trump was already a racist long before that but the idea of trying to tie the spread of the virus with a specific nationality when everything shows the disease was already here and spreading by Americans is pretty much the definition of xenophobia and racism. It wasn’t so much a dog whistle as it was a bullhorn.

Yeah. I mean, look through his history either he's racist or he's prejudice against minorities; take your pick. At this point, we just see little snippets of evidence of it.

 

[DaisyDay]

And yet Trump is also a racist for wanting travel restrictions very early on in Covid. Democrats resoundingly said he was being racist for wanting to limit travel from China when that could have made some difference. So which is it? Both?

The problem with his proposed travel ban is that he wanted to ban Chinese nationals from entrance to the US, but not other people who were traveling from China to the US, as though Chinese people were special carriers of disease. So yeah, racist.

 

[DaisyDay]

Anyone remember how Donald put his totally unqualified daughter's husband in charge of distributing PPEs to the States? He made the states compete against each other driving up prices instead of coordinating distribution efficiently. Kushner was an absolute disaster.

 

[rambot]

Anyone remember how Donald put his totally unqualified daughter's husband in charge of distributing PPEs to the States? He made the states compete against each other driving up prices instead of coordinating distribution efficiently. Kushner was an absolute disaster.

All this "Hunter is a Nepo" nonsense truly falls on my own deaf ears because of Trump hiring his own children to jobs for which they were both unqualifed and out of their element. And they even had a WHOLE machine under them to do the ACTUAL work. They just needed to make a few decisions and guide the process.

Still managed to mess it up.

 

[chevyontheriver]

That's a bit of skewed thinking based on what we know now...

While I didn't support Trump or some aspects of his handling of covid, drudging up things about his request for "fast tracking" the vaccines, and the mask stuff (which we now know weren't nearly as effective as some originally thought they were -- especially the kinds most people were wearing) hardly substantiates your previous statement

View attachment 349936

Knowing what we know now, had they actually greenlit the vaccines sooner, we probably would've been better off, yes?. (but obviously we didn't know that then). And more people wearing cloth masks (which is the types the experts were telling people to use so that surgical and N95's could be reserved for frontline medical workers) wouldn't have changed the trajectory.


What you're saying basically suggests that the vaccines went from "Too new to be trusted" to "So safe and so well-researched, that we should be discussing mandates for them" in a matter of 4 months?


So to recap, the reasons I listed in my previous post are more compelling explanations for why the US had more deaths per capita than some other places than your explanation of "It's because Trump promoted quackery 12 months prior to vaccine availability, and he refused to wear a mask"


You're basically operating on a position that's predicated on the false assertion that everything we thought we knew in 2020 ended up being right.

It'd be like trying to blame someone for not wiping off their packages from Amazon with alcohol wipes back in 2020, even though we now know that was a pretty pointless effort that didn't make a difference anyway.

It's much more fun to blame it all on Trump.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

It's much more fun to blame it all on Trump.

I think it's definitely that reason for some people.

However, I think for others, if they can keep the focus/blame on something else, they don't have to acknowledge the fact that perhaps they acted too hastily in the way they treated some other people. (and that goes for some people who were on both ends of the covid debate)

And if forced to acknowledge the fact that things they were mad over may not have changed the outcome a whole lot, it would be mean that their actions were for nothing.

Even within my own extended family, I saw some bitter disputes over covid-related matters that left a few bridges burned till this very day.
(I have one uncle who still has a tepid relationship with one of his kids because they skipped a few family functions during covid and he thought they were "buying into government propaganda", and two cousins who are brother and sister on the other side of the family who still don't talk because one got mad at the other because they wouldn't make their kids wear masks and it got quite hostile)


If the thing "Steve" got made at "Joe" for in 2021 (so much so, that Steve was willing to burn family bridges) ends up being something that wasn't all that influential in the grand scheme of things, "Steve" is going to have a harder time admitting that in 2024.

A lot of folks have a level of pride that won't let them admit that "the hill to die on" they chose was perhaps a "mole hill" (if I may combine two idioms)

 

[FireDragon76]

Fauci's lies, misinformation, and disinformation before Congress and also multiple times to the American people ought NOT go unpunished. Americans are waking up to the lies, and disinformation and misinformation told by Fauci.

It's this kind of inflammatory language that is unhelpful, and just reflects somebody that is engaging in partisan bickering.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Fauci's lies, misinformation, and disinformation before Congress and also multiple times to the American people ought NOT go unpunished. Americans are waking up to the lies, and disinformation and misinformation told by Fauci.

I think Fauci should be given a certain amount of leniency, in that there is a distinction between lies/disinformation and ignorance/misinformation. And many of the things he ended up being wrong about were definitely the latter.


Fauci getting some stuff wrong early on the process (and then maybe not being super quick to publicly acknowledge he was wrong, and instead opted to let time pass hoping people would forget) is more understandable/forgivable than the people who built entire identities around being pro-Fauci.


People putting "In Fauci We Trust" signs in their yards, or wearing #TeamFauci t-shirts represented something more problematic than him being wrong about some things.

As soon as "How pro-Fauci you are" became a political amulet or a way to signal "how anti-Trump you are", that's when things went off the rails in my estimation, and that made him lose more credibility than anything else.

The same goes for certain aspects of the masking debate, remember these shirts?

As if people felt the need to "let everyone know why they weren't wearing a mask", because if someone saw them without one, someone may not know they're liberal.



As far as Fauci himself, he got things wrong just like everyone else did early on when dealing with a brand new thing, and the Fauci worshiping that was seen actually hurt his credibility in a broader sense (through no fault of his own) more than anything he got wrong.

In a nutshell, everyone in the media making it "taboo" to question him or thought he could walk on water, were a bigger problem them him getting some stuff wrong.

There are very few times where people in professional sciences can become a "TV Personality", and not lose some measure credibility in the eyes of half of the public.

Sanjay Gupta would be another example. He's a very accomplished neurosurgeon, has performed hundreds of successful surgeries and saved lives. As soon as he became the "TV/CNN guy", people started to view him in the same way they'd view Dr. Oz. And instead of brain surgery, he's on on a partisan TV network showing people how to sanitize their groceries (which ended up being a complete nonsense thing that everyone was wrong about and not needed)

 

[Pommer]

Anyone remember how Donald put his totally unqualified daughter's husband in charge of distributing PPEs to the States? He made the states compete against each other driving up prices instead of coordinating distribution efficiently. Kushner was an absolute disaster.

Jared “THEY’RE OUR VENTILATORS!” Kushner, yes, also top dog on the Opioid Battle.

 

[Vambram]

‘He Did It with a Smile’: Fauci Admits Errors, Deflects Blame during Hill Testimony

Former COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci confirmed during congressional testimony on Monday that he mislead the public regarding several key claims that experts say

washingtonstand.com

 

[Pommer]

‘He Did It with a Smile’: Fauci Admits Errors, Deflects Blame during Hill Testimony

Former COVID czar Dr. Anthony Fauci confirmed during congressional testimony on Monday that he mislead the public regarding several key claims that experts say

washingtonstand.com

Mistakes will be made in any pandemic which is another reason why pandemics are bad.

 

[Vambram]

Mistakes will be made in any pandemic which is another reason why pandemics are bad.

He did a lot more than simply make mistakes. He was making stuff up and making up restrictions that had no basis in actual data.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

He did a lot more than simply make mistakes. He was making stuff up and making up restrictions that had no basis in actual data.

Well, even there, for the sake of honesty I think we have to make the distinction between a blatant case of "making stuff up" vs. rules that we know had some basis on previous experiences, but were implemented in ways that were somewhat arbitrary.

An example of that would be rules regarding types of distancing.

While rules like "6 foot social distancing" and "restaurants can operate 20% capacity with tables a minimum of 10 feet apart" were pretty much arbitrary numbers and likely not based on any specific dataset, the underlying premise of "keeping your distance from someone who may be sick" was still an age-old valid premise, and I suspect they were wanting to put "hard numbers" on that was a means of making people conscience of keeping their distance from people who could be sick.

As another example. Handwashing with soap and warm water as a means of reducing the spread of certain pathogens is/was certainly a valid well-accepted premise, however tossing in somewhat arbitrary things like "it has to be for the duration of the happy birthday song" were an arbitrary modification on that.


In terms of actual "purely made up" covid measures, I actually saw more of those coming from the alternative medicine community than I did from Fauci or the mainstream medical community. (things like "use XYZ type of essential oil in a diffuser" or "take colloidal silver" or products like iodine nasal spray)


In terms of "getting things wrong", I think the the alt-medicine community got a lot more things wildly wrong (as they usually do), but people who opposed Fauci and restrictions were far more forgiving with them (I suspect due to the fact that the alt-medicine community was typically on the side that was opposing restrictions)