How Fauci Fooled America

[Searching1God]

Not if enough people get vaccinated. Once the viral reproduction rate falls below 1.0, the virus will not surge. But I do think that broad-based lockdowns themselves are not necessary if other accommodations can be made. It has been especially harmful to children to miss a year of in-person schooling. Again, the solution is vaccination.

All the countries with higher vaccination rates than the US keep going in and out of lockdown or restrictions because cases surge as soon as they re-open or loosen up restrictions.

I didn't know about the viral reproduction rate needing to fall below 1.00. I will look into that.

 

[Searching1God]

That was a big part of it as well.
Perhaps the main part. They wanted to save masks for healthcare people at the front line.
But also because masks for healthy people weren't as important at that time.
Masks are for stopping spreading it to others and at that time, very few people had the disease.

Pragmatism would say that Fauci made the correct call at that time.

We will have to agree to disagree.

 

[timothyu]

All the countries with higher vaccination rates than the US keep going in and out of lockdown or restrictions because cases surge as soon as they re-open or loosen up restrictions.

It was announced yesterday on European news (France 24) that Europe is going into it's 6th wave. Of course this was in conjunction with the booster shot so to be taken with a grain of fear mongering salt.

 

[RDKirk]

That was a big part of it as well.
Perhaps the main part. They wanted to save masks for healthcare people at the front line.
But also because masks for healthy people weren't as important at that time.
Masks are for stopping spreading it to others and at that time, very few people had the disease.

Pragmatism would say that Fauci made the correct call at that time.

No, he made the wrong call.

The right call would have been, "Everyone needs to be masked until everyone is vaccinated. We need a shutdown until American mask production is ramped up to provide sufficient N-95 masks for all workers."

 

[timothyu]

How about an immediate shut down of all transportation, starting with international.

 

[muichimotsu]

That's doubletalk. He specifically mentioned the medical supply. The medical supply chain is controlled.



I had a commander who taught me, "It's okay to be mistaken, but never be wrong. Being mistaken is when you tell me about it...being wrong is when you don't."

Fauci knew that masks were effective for medical people who worked within the contagion--he said that. He knew that essential non-medical workers would also have to continue to work within the contagion themselves. That was the truth he knew. He did not tell that truth, he said that civilians didn't need masks.

So not admitting he was wrong openly means he's malicious now? You can be sincere and still wrong

Pretty sure the government pushed that, at best you'd be arguing he offered that advice, but not in the dismissive idea that masks were ineffective like the misinformation spread in no small part by Trump's administration. Expecting everyone to listen to EVERY possible thing in regards to this is the height of absurdity given how oversaturated we are with media as it is in the modern age.

The problem is far more people being unwilling to even admit fault and change gears, but instead keep digging in their heels that this isn't so bad, that masks don't work or other nonsense long debunked in the nearly 2 years we've been dealing with this. Blaming those in power is shifting any blame from a populace that seems more often than not to be borderline sycophants that will defend the indefensible instead of having a civil discourse.

Nope, America just has a demographic constantly insisting they're right, cherry picking their sources and generally being a public nuisance, while the police treat them with kid gloves and refuse to even address their own issues, some of which is linked to the pandemic quite directly in that police supposedly died far more from covid in the last year than gunshot related fatalities.

 

[muichimotsu]

No, he made the wrong call.

The right call would have been, "Everyone needs to be masked until everyone is vaccinated. We need a shutdown until American mask production is ramped up to provide sufficient N-95 masks for all workers."

You think a shutdown on the federal level, even with a capitalist spin and promoting the hero narrative for workers that can easily and has been shown to a small degree to have backfired, would have been a bigger motivation? There was already conspiracy theories at that time and vaccine research was, afaik, still in early stages, plus clinical trials wouldn't start at that point until...summer 2020-ish, iirc.

Is it even likely many people would've understood the distinction given how rock stupid easily half of America is, compounded by an unwillingness to learn or really be challenged?

 

[RDKirk]

You think a shutdown on the federal level, even with a capitalist spin and promoting the hero narrative for workers that can easily and has been shown to a small degree to have backfired, would have been a bigger motivation?

I don't know what you intended that sentence to mean.

 

[stevil]

No, he made the wrong call.

The right call would have been, "Everyone needs to be masked until everyone is vaccinated. We need a shutdown until American mask production is ramped up to provide sufficient N-95 masks for all workers."

Pence was leading the taskforce, and Trump was ultimately responsible.
It is out of Fauci's remit to shutdown borders and put in place mandates.

Fauci made the right suggestion at the time that the limited amount of masks in the country at that time, would be best used by health workers at the front line.

 

[RestoreTheJoy]

'Australia's population of 26 million is comparable to Florida's 22 million, but when you consider the figures around COVID-19, the numbers are starkly different. Currently, Australia's daily COVID-19 cases are being measured in the hundreds, but last week Florida recorded more than 150,000 cases.

The total number of deaths in Australia is still less than 1,000. Florida has now passed 41,000, by some reports.' Australia and Florida have a similar population size but their COVID-19 policies are vastly different

Guess where I'd prefer to be.

Just Cases? Or hospitalizations and deaths?

Florida had that many cases back in the summer but not at all now. COVID in Florida: Latest metrics show cases keep dropping

You do realize that Florida is the Retired/elderly person capital of the country, right, skewing the results, as the elderly and compromised are the ones largely at risk from this virus. Florida has almost as many older people as the huge state of California. The population of the elderly is huge in Florida because it is warm year round, unlike most of the country. Lots of people move to Florida when they are older so they don't have to dig out their cars from the snow.

 

[timothyu]

You do realize that Florida is the Retired/elderly person capital of the country, right, skewing the results, as the elderly and compromised are the ones largely at risk from this virus.

And more compacted than countries.

 

[Bradskii]

You do realize that Florida is the Retired/elderly person capital of the country...

Sounds like they should have tried harder, doesn't it.

 

[muichimotsu]

I don't know what you intended that sentence to mean.

People weren't going to be convinced that a shutdown was good at all when they're so uber capitalist they don't realize that too much of a good thing can backfire and create economic problems that we've seen more of in the last decade or so, afaik.

If they were going to try to say, "Hey, this shutdown will HELP American economic power," that still wouldn't convince those in that demographic which thinks that ANY shutdown must somehow be socialist and/or communist.

 

[RDKirk]

If they were going to try to say, "Hey, this shutdown will HELP American economic power," that still wouldn't convince those in that demographic which thinks that ANY shutdown must somehow be socialist and/or communist.

Nobody was initially of that opinion.

 

[whatbogsends]

Wow, pretty sure someone in the thread already debunked this and I barely watched a minute of it before I pieced that together. They never lied, because they never said it wasn't effective absolutely, but also it was based on concerns of limited supplies, because we saw how people would panic buy things because capitalist greed.

They were trying to maintain a balance here, lying entails malicious intent and deception versus the problem of the government (which is separate from the health community) putting forth one message based on issues of causing a panic or the like. If masks didn't work, then why were they still trying to keep them supplied to healthcare workers?

The government was the issue here (particularly Trump's administration, as I recall), not the medical community that were trying to put out that message, but the government got ahead of them and spread disinformation and misinformation in regards to mask efficacy, which would be lying, the very thing the medical community was not doing. It's like you only half listened to the video and the content in question to fit your narrative and not actually listening with full focus

You won't acknowledge he lied about masks, and i'm guessing you won't acknowledge that he lied about the threshold for herd immunity, even though he admitted that he said numbers based on "what the public was ready to hear" (based on polling) in an interview with the New York Times.

In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”

In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt — almost as much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak.
...
Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the tough message that the return to normal might take longer than anticipated.

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

“We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don't know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But I'm not going to say 90 percent."

How much herd immunity is enough?

 

[muichimotsu]

You won't acknowledge he lied about masks, and i'm guessing you won't acknowledge that he lied about the threshold for herd immunity, even though he admitted that he said numbers based on "what the public was ready to hear" (based on polling) in an interview with the New York Times.

In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.”

In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.

Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a halt — almost as much as is needed to stop a measles outbreak.
...
Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the tough message that the return to normal might take longer than anticipated.

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

“We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don't know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But I'm not going to say 90 percent."

How much herd immunity is enough?

It's almost like you want to insinuate malice in the changing of the message (with NEW INFORMATION! Kind of a necessity in science, statements are not absolute, they're provisional, deal with it) and deflecting any responsibility from people who dismissed efficacy of vaccines in the first place.

Herd immunity is not settled absolute science, it's going to vary based on the level of transmissibility and other factors. You appear to have a skewed idealistic version where scientists can never be wrong in their assessments based on provisional information relative to prior understandings and studies in regards to a hypothetical coronavirus outbreak.

So what if we need 90%, comparable to measles? Is it going to harm society at large to seek that?

Do you actually have anything beyond fearmongering and whataboutism to substantiate the needless resistance to vaccine technology that has been studied for nearly a generation?

 

[muichimotsu]

Nobody was initially of that opinion.

Can you really say that for absolutely certain? Trump cult seemed convinced this would just, "go away like a miracle," to paraphrase former president Cheeto.

 

[timothyu]

Trump cult seemed convinced this would just, "go away like a miracle," to paraphrase former president Cheeto.

But it will just as all others have in the past. It is his enemies who claimed he expected immediate results. Even pandemics get politicized, not by the politicians but by the people seeking to divide.

 

[whatbogsends]

It's almost like you want to insinuate malice in the changing of the message (with NEW INFORMATION! Kind of a necessity in science, statements are not absolute, they're provisional, deal with it) and deflecting any responsibility from people who dismissed efficacy of vaccines in the first place.

Herd immunity is not settled absolute science, it's going to vary based on the level of transmissibility and other factors. You appear to have a skewed idealistic version where scientists can never be wrong in their assessments based on provisional information relative to prior understandings and studies in regards to a hypothetical coronavirus outbreak.

So what if we need 90%, comparable to measles? Is it going to harm society at large to seek that?

Do you actually have anything beyond fearmongering and whataboutism to substantiate the needless resistance to vaccine technology that has been studied for nearly a generation?

It wasn't based on changing science. He acknowledge that it was based on what he believed people were ready to hear.

In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
...
Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the tough message that the return to normal might take longer than anticipated.

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

I don't blame him for being wrong. I blame him for deliberately misleading.

 

[RDKirk]

It wasn't based on changing science. He acknowledge that it was based on what he believed people were ready to hear.

In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
...
Now that some polls are showing that many more Americans are ready, even eager, for vaccines, he said he felt he could deliver the tough message that the return to normal might take longer than anticipated.

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

I don't blame him for being wrong. I blame him for deliberately misleading.

Yes, he was saying one thing at the time, but when I was doing my own Google research, past discussions of herd immunity percentages had always been much higher.

That's why I've contended that Fauci, as an advisor, was not giving the best advice. Rather, he was attempting to manipulate the people he was giving advice to.