Unlike many media figures, I've never been a reflexive fan or a critic of Dr. Anthony Fauci. My general view of the man has been that he's a leading authority who's doing his best in a time of crisis, who heavily prefers to err on the side of caution (not surprising for an infectious disease expert), and who sometimes tailors his pronouncements in a manner that is overly calculating or even misleading -- as to manipulate the public into proceeding a certain way. In short, a mixed bag. But in recent weeks, I've found more and more of his statements to be questionable at best, if not downright counter-productive. His continued insistence upon emphasizing all the things he believes fully vaccinated people shouldn't do strikes me as actively harmful at this point.
The vaccines are almost miraculously effective and safe, which Fauci sometimes acknowledges, like when he appears to be taking credit for Operation Warp Speed. But then we get maddeningly mixed messaging like this, which threaten to exacerbate hesitancies among the very vaccine-skeptical Americans we need to get immunized to help hasten the end of the pandemic through herd immunity:
Fauci is at it again. "It’s still not ok for vaccinated Americans to eat and drink indoors." pic.twitter.com/yWHTnRN18f
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 12, 2021
Movie theaters where viewers remove their masks to snack on popcorn?
— Healthcare Insider (@HealthInsider) April 9, 2021
? It's a no for Dr. Fauci. "That would still be of concern to me," he said.https://t.co/TGmVOvcGsQ pic.twitter.com/lWdTJaglP3
What about travel?
— Healthcare Insider (@HealthInsider) April 9, 2021
? Even though the @CDCgov said that vaccinated Americans can travel domestically, Fauci won't be planning trips.
"I don't see that in my life," he said. "When this is all over, then I'll worry about that."https://t.co/CpTfqhlC2a pic.twitter.com/32P54YWw2C
"Fauci said it's important for all Americans — both vaccinated and unvaccinated — to continue avoiding crowds and socially distancing until we know for sure that vaccinated people don't spread the virus," the thread continues. Perhaps Fauci only intended these answers to reflect his own personal choices as an elderly person, but much of the media takes and amplifies his word as gospel truth, which he certainly knows, and I suspect he enjoys. It is therefore quite irresponsible, in my view, to undermine Americans' faith in the vaccines by more or less saying that people cannot significantly alter their behavior after becoming fully immunized. Theaters? No. Restaurants? No. Travel? No. Normalcy? Nope. The messaging, based on science, should be the opposite: Fully inoculated are safe and encouraged to get back to their pre-pandemic lives. The shots are our ticket out of the nightmare. But Fauci keeps massively hedging based on exceedingly rare exceptions to the far-more-important rule. He says he wants to be sure that vaccinated people don't spread the virus, but lots of evidence already demonstrates that to be the case. Nate Silver says denying this reality amounts to "pure gaslighting at this point."
Indeed, the ultra-cautious CDC Director herself recently said that fully inoculated individuals do not carry COVID-19, a broadly accurate statement that the CDC partially walked back anyway, due to technicalities and extremely rare occurrences. But the overall data on this point is overwhelmingly encouraging. Writing in the Wall Street Journal recently, Dr. Nicole Saphier observed that "once immunity has kicked in, the vaccinated are at negligible risk of being infected, never mind spreading infection." Fauci appears to be fixating on that negligible risk, which is a grave disservice. Sending a signal -- even with the best of intentions -- that there isn't really that much of a difference between being vaccinated and unvaccinated in terms of behavior and activities is dangerous. It calcifies doubts among the vaccine-resistant, some of whom suspect government officials want to continue wielding capricious control over their lives no matter what they do. It likely also stirs cynicism among other vaccine-skeptical populations, as well: If I can't go do fun normal things, and I'm very unlikely to die from the disease even if I get it, why bother with the shots? And it feeds the borderline psychosis of vaccinated people (typically on the Left) who continue to traffic in their own weird brand of anti-vax sentiment:
And we double mask in our family — the hospital style one with a cute cloth one on top. Will still be doing that for the foreseeable future. Here’s my fun @thereidout mask! pic.twitter.com/aJNTEuSn8I
— Joy-Ann Pro-Democracy & Masks Reid ?? (@JoyAnnReid) April 11, 2021
They're so "pro-science" that they want to signal as loudly as possible that they're getting their jabs, but also want people to know that even when they achieve full immunity, they're not going to go do anything because of microscopic risks being played up by figures like Fauci. Message: We don't actually trust the science that the vaccines work phenomenally well, and we shall remain hyper-obedient, with endless double-masking, as far as the eye can see. Madness. All of this contributes to the ludicrous current reality that hordes of vaccinated people are voluntarily refusing to re-engage in normal life, even though it's safe for them to do so, while legions of unvaccinated people are behaving like the vaccinated people can and should. Some of this is pure tribalism. But some of it is the result of catastrophically bad messaging by senior public health officials:
52% of people who won’t get vaccinated say it’s safe to hang out with friends right now. just 21% of the vaccinated say the same. 13% of *vaccinated* people say it won’t be safe until *next year* https://t.co/RoYtCwu9be pic.twitter.com/D7LwDfnv0J
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) April 9, 2021
Also incredibly unhelpful, as usual, are America's journalists, some of whom seem hellbent on spreading vaccine skepticism by showcasing outlier examples (and even trumpeting deaths not linked to vaccines) in order to warp the perceptions of a general public whose capacity for rational risk evaluation is...strained. CNN butchering basic facts about what vaccine efficacy means, and making commercial air travel seem far more of a public health risk than it is, is one example (belatedly corrected). Terrible reporting and garbage alarmist headlines about variants 'defeating' the vaccines is even worse. And then there's the overall drumbeat of negativity from certain experts who are given lots of airtime and column inches. In reality, America has been gifted an effective silver bullet to defeat this terrible pandemic: Three wonderfully, astoundingly safe and effective vaccines. And yet, a shocking number of our elites seem determined to convey that (a) everyone absolutely should get their jabs, but (b) the jury's still out on if they truly work. Infuriating:
Between Fauci's ongoing minimization of vaccine efficacy, CNN blowing its vaccine-on-airlines numbers, and the misconstrual of the S. African variant information, the insane covid panic porn is out of control right now.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) April 11, 2021
I'll leave you with another significant failure out of China:
Oops.
— MaryAnastasiaO'Grady (@MaryAnastasiaOG) April 12, 2021
Top official admits Chinese vaccines have low effectiveness https://t.co/aaKMYqawEX
