From funding of gain-of-function research he said he didn’t to flip-flopping on the efficacy of masks and the COVID “vaccines,” here are the top nine times “Dr.” Anthony Fauci has contradicted himself. Each of the nine instances on the list has a summary of Fauci’s contradictory behavior followed by detailed evidence and exact quotations. Source documentation is provided for every single quotation from Fauci, Collins, Farrar, Andersen, et al. and every piece of evidence showing the NIAID Director is a pathological liar.
Before proceeding to the list, here’s a reminder of what Nobel Prize winner and inventor of the PCR test Kary Mullis thought about Anthony Fauci:
“Tony Fauci does not mind going on television in front of the people who pay his salary and [lying] directly into the camera.” – Nobel Prize winner Kary Mullis
1. FUNDING GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH
One of Anthony Fauci’s biggest contradictions—indeed, one of his biggest lies—came when he told Senator Rand Paul on May 11, 2021 that “we [the NIAID/NIH] did not fund gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology” and that “Dr. [Ralph] Baric is not doing gain-of-function research“ at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Based on the concrete, irrefutable evidence beneath Fauci’s testimony and (partial) transcription below, it is inarguable that the NIAID was both directly and indirectly (via Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance) funding gain-of-function research at both UNC Chapel Hill and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Immediately below Fauci’s transcribed testimony is a 2019 annual report submitted by Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance directly to the NIAID, which states clearly that one of its “specific aims” is “Testing Predictions of CoV Inter-Species Transmission.” The report goes on to discuss “In vivo infection of Human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice with SARSr-CoV S protein variants” and the use of engineered chimeric viruses to infect Human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice.
Beneath the 2019 annual report from Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance is a 2016 paper published in PNAS. The paper, authored by Ralph Baric et al. and funded by the NIAID, explicitly states the researchers created “chimeric and full-length zoonotic coronaviruses to evaluate emergence potential.” The researchers also tested these engineered chimeric viruses in human airway cultures and in vivo in mice with Human ACE2.
Beneath the 2016 paper in PNAS is a 2015 paper published in the journal Nature Medicine co-authored by Zhengli-Li Shi (the so-called “Batwoman” from China) and Ralph Baric. The authors note in the paper, also funded by the NIAID, they “synthesized the SHC014 spike in the context of the replication-competent, mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone…to maximize the opportunity for pathogenesis and vaccine studies in mice.“ The authors also note that their chimeric virus did indeed show a “gain in pathogenesis.“
The NIAID explicitly funded Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance. See patent number at top-left of 2019 report cover page. The 2016 paper also explicitly states that “Research was supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.” The 2015 paper, likewise, notes that “Research in this manuscript was supported by grants from the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases.”
Along with clearly being funded by the NIAID, in both the 2015 and 2016 papers the authors explicitly acknowledge their work was done prior to the 2014 pause on GOF research. Why would they mention this if they weren’t doing GOF research?
Also note that on July 20, 2021, in another confrontation, Senator Paul asked Fauci: “You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you’re saying that’s not gain of function?” To which Fauci responded: “That is correct.” In another heated exchange in November of 2021, Fauci claimed “‘gain-of-function’ is a very nebulous term.“
Immediately below Fauci’s “nebulous term” quote is an exact definition of gain-of-function research from the U.S. government’s 2014 pause order. Note the pause order says: “The research funding pause would not apply…unless the tests are reasonably anticipated to increase transmissibility and/or pathogenicity.”
“Dr. Fauci, do you still support [the NIH funding] of the lab in Wuhan?”
“Senator Paul with all due respect, you are entirely and completely incorrect that the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Paul: “Do you fund Dr. [Ralph] Baric’s gain-of-function research?”
“Dr. Baric is not doing gain-of-function research, and if it is, it’s according to the guidelines and it is being conducted in North Carolina, not China.”
Paul: “At least 200 scientists from the Cambridge Working Group say that [the work being done at Baric’s lab] is gain-of-function.”
“Well it is not, and if you look at the grant, and you look at the progress reports, it is not gain-of-function Despite the fact that people tweet that, write about it….”
Paul: “Do you still support sending money to the Wuhan Virology Institute?”
“We do not send money now to the Wuhan Virology Institute”
Paul: “Do you support sending money? We did, under your tutelage, we were sending it through EcoHealth; it was a subagency and a sub-grant. Do you support that the money was going to the Wuhan Institute?”
“Let me explain to you why that was done. The SARS-CoV-1 originated in bats in China. It would have been irresponsible of us if we did not investigate the bat viruses and the serology to see who might have been infected in China.”
More Fauci responses from the interview:
“I don’t favor gain-of-function research in China, you are saying things that are not correct.”
“The NIH and NIAD categorically has not funded gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
“I don’t know how many times I can say it m’dam chair, we did not fund gain-of-function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
Below is the cover page and two other pages from the annual report for the project titled “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” The principal investigator listed on the annual report is President of EcoHealth Alliance Peter Daszak. The project, funded by the NIAID, clearly states that one of its aims is to test “Predictions of CoV Inter-Species Transmission” using “In vivo infection of Human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice with SARSr-CoV S protein variants.” The authors of the report note that “Mice were infected with 4 strains of SARSr-CoVs with different S protein, including the full-length recombinant virus of SARSr-CoV WIV1 and three chimeric viruses with the backbone of WIV1 and S proteins of SHC014, WIV16 and Rs4231, respectively.” These “chimeric” and “recombinant” viruses are ones that “gain the function” of being more infectious and/or more pathogenic.
LINK TO ANNUAL PROJECT REPORT that shows the NIAD was funding EcoHealth Alliance, which, in turn, was performing gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China. This is a year-five annual report—2018-2019—submitted to the NIAID; the reporting period is 06/01/2018 through 05/31/2019.
Furthermore, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports directly that the NIAID awarded Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance approximately $3.4 million by 2019.
2016 Gain-of-Function (GOF) Paper in PNAS
Not only did Fauci unequivocally pay for GOF research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, he—via the NIAID—also funded GOF research at Ralph Baric’s lab here in the U.S. at North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Two papers from 2015 and 2016, the former published in Nature Medicine and the latter in PNAS, explicitly outline how Baric—with the aid of resources from the Wuhan Institute of Virology—performed gain-of-function research.
Immediately below are parts of the 2016 paper with relevant sections highlighted. Note the authors write that: “This manuscript describes efforts to extend surveillance beyond sequence analysis, constructing chimeric and full-length zoonotic coronaviruses to evaluate emergence potential.“ The authors also write that “In addition to the full-length clone, we also produced WIV1-CoV chimeric virus that replaced the SARS spike with the WIV1 spike within the mouse-adapted backbone.”
NOTE: The authors “thank Dr. Zhengli-Li Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology for access to bat CoV sequences and plasmid of WIV1-CoV spike protein.”
2015 Gain-of-Function (GOF) Paper in Nature Medicine
Below is the 2015 paper published in Nature Medicine co-authored by Zhengli-Li Shi and Ralph Baric. Note the authors state in the paper that they “synthesized the SHC014 spike [protein] in the context of the replication-competent, mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone …to maximize the opportunity for pathogenesis and vaccine studies in mice.” Also note the authors write that their engineered chimeric virus “shows a gain in pathogenesis.”
JULY 20, 2021 (LINK TO C-SPAN VIDEO)
On July 2021, Rand Paul had another encounter with Fauci, in which Senator Paul asked Fauci: “You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you’re saying that’s not gain of function?” Fauci responded: “That is correct.”
Later on, in November of 2021, in another heated debate with Senator Paul, Fauci claimed that “‘gain-of-function’ is a very nebulous term.“
Immediately below Fauci’s “nebulous term” quote is an exact definition of gain-of-function research from the U.S. government’s 2014 pause order. Note the pause order says: “The research funding pause would not apply…unless the tests are reasonably anticipated to increase transmissibility and/or pathogenicity.”
Rand Paul: “You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you’re saying that’s not gain-of-function?”
“That is correct.” – Anthony Fauci, July 20, 2021
Rand Paul: “Dr. Fauci, knowing that it is a crime to lie to congress, do you wish to retract your statement of May 11, where you claimed that the NIH never funded gain-of-function research in Wuhan?”
“Senator Paul, I have never lied before the Congress, and I do not retract that statement. This paper that you were referring to, was judged by qualified staff up and down the chain as not being gain-of-function.”
Rand Paul: “You take an animal virus and you increase its transmissibility to humans, you’re saying that’s not gain-of-function?”
“That is correct.”
NOVEMBER 4, 2021 (LINK TO C-SPAN VIDEO)
“First of all ‘gain-of-function’ is a very nebulous term.“ – Anthony Fauci, November 4, 2021
Rand Paul: “Will you today finally take some responsibility for funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan?”
“First of all ‘gain-of-function’ is a very nebulous term. We have spent—not us, but outside bodies—a considerable amount of effort to give a more precise definition to the type of research that is of concern that might lead to a dangerous situation. You are aware of that.”
Rand Paul: “We’re aware that you deleted ‘gain-of-function’ from the NIH website.”
“Well I can get back to that in a moment, if we have time. But let’s get back to the operating framework and guide rails of which we operate under. And you have ignored them. The guidelines are very very clear that you have to be dealing with a pathogen that clearly has shown and very likely to be highly transmissible in an uncontrollable way in humans and to have a high degree of morbidity and mortality and that you do experiments to enhance that, hence the word, EPPP; enhanced pathogens of potential pandemic…”
NOTE:
Immediately below is the 2014 “Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses” from the U.S. government. Note it explicitly says that “New USG funding will not be released for gain-of-function research projects that may be reasonably anticipated to confer attributes to influenza, MERS, or SARS viruses such that the virus would have enhanced pathogenicity and/or transmissibility in mammals via the respiratory route.” And that “The research funding pause would not apply…unless the tests are reasonably anticipated to increase transmissibility and/or pathogenicity.”
LINK TO PAUSE ON GOF RESEARCH FROM 2014
OCTOBER 20, 2021 (LINK TO HHS LETTER)
On October 20, 2021, in response to a request from House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, James Comer, et al. Lawrence A. Tabak, the Principal Deputy Director of the HHS (Department of Health and Human Services) reported that:
“The limited experiment described in the final progress report provided by EcoHealth Alliance was testing if spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model…In this limited experiment, laboratory mice infected with the SHC014 WIV1 bat coronavirus [an engineered virus] became sicker than those infected with the WIV1 bat coronavirus. As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do.”
Tabak also said that:
“EcoHealth failed to report [a one log increase in growth] right away, as was required by the terms of the grant. EcoHealth is being notified that they have five days from today to submit to NIH any and all
unpublished data from the experiments and work conducted under this award. Additional
compliance efforts continue.”
This stands as a direct, written admission from the NIH that EcoHealth violated the terms of its NIH grant. Also note that this is a direct lie from Tobak, as the EcoHealth Alliance report clearly states that: “Pathogenicity of the 4 SARSr-CoVs was evaluated by recording the survival rate of challenged mice in a 2-week course.” All of the virus types tested on the mice with humanized airways were lethal; a chimera engineered by Daszak et al., rWIV1-SHC014 S, was by far the most lethal.
HAS FAUCI COMMITTED A CRIME BY LYING TO CONGRESS? (YES.)
As CNBC points out in an unrelated 2016 article, Section 1621 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code says that anyone who “willfully and contrary to such oath states or subscribes any material matter which he does not believe to be true” is guilty of perjury and shall be fined or imprisoned up to five years, or both.
2. DENYING NATURAL IMMUNITY
Here is a timeline of the way Anthony Fauci’s perspective on natural immunity has “evolved,” remaining ambiguous and contradictory from the start of COVID-19 up until this writing (February 2022). As with many of his biggest contradictions Fauci’s “evolution” on the topic began grounded in sensical observation; that is, the commonsense truth born out by scientific evidence and prior experience. But, as data continued to come in confirming commonsense truth, Fauci began to turn more illogical.
Note that as early as March 26, 2020, Fauci said in an interview with Mark Zuckerberg that “[There] is every reason to believe that this virus, when it comes to an immune response, and long-term immunity, that it’s not acting any differently from any other virus. So I would project, that once you are infected and you recover, that if you get exposed to this exact virus, you will not get reinfected.”
Fauci reconfirmed this common-sense point of view—born out time and again from studies the world over—on May 4, 2020, when he said in a National Geographic interview that “It’s obvious that many people make a very adequate immune response“ to SARS-CoV-2. “They clear the virus, and they do well.”
On May 12, 2020 Fauci even told Rand Paul that “given what we know about the recovery from viruses such as coronaviruses in general, or even any infectious disease with very few exceptions, [we know] when you have antibody present it…very likely indicates a degree of protection.“
After the “vaccines” were released, however, Fauci changed his tune.
On August 8, 2021 Fauci said on NBC News that “[I]f you’ve had COVID, you might be protected for a while against the original virus that you were infected with, but when variants come along, you are vulnerable. …That’s the reason why we strongly recommend that even if you have been infected, you get vaccinated.”
When CNN host Sanjay Gupta asked Fauci “Should [people who’ve recovered] also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them?“ on September 10, 2021, however, Fauci responded: “I don’t have really have a firm answer for you on that.”
By January 18, 2022, Fauci was back to claiming “you have a virus in which the infection causes immunity that seems to wane rather quickly.“
MARCH 26, 2020 (LINK TO CHAN ZUCKERBERG INITIATIVE VIDEO)
Mark Zuckerberg: “Can you get reinfected by the coronavirus if you’ve already had it?“
“[There] is every reason to believe that this virus, when it comes to an immune response, and long-term immunity, that it’s not acting any differently from any other virus. So I would project, that once you are infected and you recover, that if you get exposed to this exact virus, you will not get reinfected,” Anthony Fauci, March 26, 2020
Mark Zuckerberg: “Once [kids] are infected and the infection runs its course and they’re done, then my understanding, and correct me if I wrong, but I think this important for people to see, is that there is no such thing as a long-term carrier…Is that your understanding or is that an open question?”
“It’s an open question, but, all the evidence in other situations indicate particularly evidence from China, indicate that once you are infected, you resolve the infection, you resolve the virus, you are not infected anymore. So we don’t anticipate that we’re going to have a problem where kids get infected, clear the infection, and then are a source to others. Even though it hasn’t been formerly proven, it’s highly suggestive that that’s not going to be the case.”
Mark Zuckerberg: “Can you get reinfected by the coronavirus if you’ve already had it?”
“Again that hasn’t been formally tested, but, [there] is every reason to believe that this virus, when it comes to an immune response, and long-term immunity, that it’s not acting any differently from any other virus. So I would project, that once you are infected and you recover, that if you get exposed to this exact virus, you will not get reinfected. Remember there are many different kinds of coronaviruses, but the one that infected you, you should be protected against.”
PUBLISHED MAY 4, 2020 (LINK TO ARTICLE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
“It’s obvious that many people make a very adequate immune response” to SARS-CoV-2. “They clear the virus, and they do well.” – Anthony Fauci, May 4, 2020
“’For some reason that we’re still struggling with, the body does not make an adequate immune response to HIV,’ he says. To fight off that virus, a vaccine has to work better than the body’s own natural response. By contrast, ‘it’s obvious that many people make a very adequate immune response’ to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the animal trials so far show that modest doses of the mRNA vaccine for coronavirus have also generated a strong immune response.”
“Vaccines are a bit different. We have a better chance of quickly getting, relatively speaking, a vaccine for the novel coronavirus than we did for HIV, because for some reason that’s still unknown the body does not make an adequate immune response to HIV.”
“We don’t necessarily have that challenge with [SARS-CoV-2] because it’s obvious that many people make a very adequate immune response. They clear the virus, and they do well. As we know from the natural history of this disease, the majority of people actually either get well without any symptoms—they’re called asymptomatic—or they have minimal symptoms, where they get a fever, some aches, and then they recover. The fact that the majority of people can actually clear the virus is a very good sign for the feasibility of developing a vaccine.”
MAY 12, 2020 (LINK TO PBS NEWSHOUR VIDEO BELOW)
“given what we know about the recovery from viruses such as coronaviruses in general, or even any infectious disease with very few exceptions, [we know] when you have antibody present it…very likely indicates a degree of protection.” – Anthony Fauci, May 12, 2020
In response to Senator Paul: “Yes, you are correct. That I have said that given what we know about the recovery from viruses such as coronaviruses in general, or even any infectious disease with very few exceptions, that when you have antibody present it…very likely indicates a degree of protection. I think this it’s in the semantics of how this is expressed, when you say ‘Has it been formerly proven?’ by long-term natural history studies, which is the only way that you can prove one: Is it protective? Which I said and will repeat: It’s likely that it is, but also, what is the degree or titer of antibody that gives you that critical level of protection and what is the durability? …You can make a reasonable assumption that it would be protective, but natural history studies over a period of months to years will then tell you definitively if that’s the case.”
AUGUST 8, 2021 (LINK TO VIDEO)
“[I]f you’ve had COVID, you might be protected for a while against the original virus that you were infected with, but when variants come along, you are vulnerable.…That’s the reason why we strongly recommend that even if you have been infected, you get vaccinated.” – Anthony Fauci, August 8, 2021
Fauci on NBC News: “there are recent studies that clearly show that if you’ve had COVID, you might be protected for a while against the original virus that you were infected with, but when variants come along, you are vulnerable. And there was a study that came out within this past week that showed that if you are infected, recover, and get one shot of the vaccine, your protection doubles what it would be if you got two shots of the vaccine and were not infected. So it is a major advantage for people who have been infected and recovered to really strongly protect them against getting reinfected with a new variant. That’s the reason why we strongly recommend that even if you have been infected, you get vaccinated.”
SEPTEMBER 10, 2021(LINK FOR VIDEO / LINK FOR BACKUP)
Sanjay Gupta: “There was a study out of Isreal about natural immunity and basically the headline was that natural immunity provides a lot of protection, even better than the vaccines alone. What are people to make of that? …As we talk about vaccine mandates I get calls all the time people say ‘I’ve already had COVID, I’m protected, and now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone.’ Should they also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them?“
“You know that’s a really good point, Sanjay, I don’t have really have a firm answer for you on that.“ – Anthony Fauci, September 10, 2021
In a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper, Sanjay Gupta tells Fauci that “I get calls all the time. I’ve already had COVID I’m protected, and now the study says maybe even more protected than the vaccine alone.” Gupta then asks Fauci: “Should they also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them?
Fauci: “You know that’s a really good point, Sanjay, I don’t have really have a firm answer for you on that. That’s something that we’re going to have to discuss regarding the durability of the response. The one thing the paper from Israel didn’t tell you is whether or not as high the protection is with natural infection, what’s the durability compared to the durability of a vaccine?”
JANUARY 18, 2022 (LINK TO PODCAST)
“you have a virus in which the infection causes immunity that seems to wane rather quickly.” – Anthony Fauci, January 18, 2022
Fauci during a January 18, 2022 WEF podcast: “that is going to be a very difficult calculation because when you talk about herd immunity and you talk about the protection in the community where you combine those who have been vaccinated with durable protection, and those who’ve been infected-recovered with durable protection. However when you have a virus in which the infection causes immunity that seems to wane rather quickly.“
3. FLIP-FLOPPING ON MASKS
Fauci’s flip-flopping on masking guidelines is perhaps his best known series of contradictions as his recommendations have become cartoonishly ungrounded. So far, in the span of about two years, the NIAID Director has gone from masks are “not really effective in keeping out virus,” to masks “are not theater” for vaccinated people. Continuing to flip-flop even now in 2022.
As with natural immunity after infection, Fauci began the COVID-19 saga with a common-sense view. “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material,” Fauci wrote to Sylvia Burwell, HHS Secretary under Obama (2014-2017), on February 5, 2020. “I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.“
In a 60 Minutes interview in March of 2020 Fauci doubled down on the inefficacy of masking. “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.…When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,” Fauci said. He even noted that “there are unintended consequences” of wearing masks.
By April 3, 2020, Fauci had flipped his position on masking. “The thinking now [on masks] is really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus.“
Fauci subsequently goes on record time and again saying that the reason he flipped was because of “data” pointing to high levels of asymptomatic transmission. “The thinking now [on masks] really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus. But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking….” Fauci said in a PBS Newshour video from April 3, 2020.
Fauci, concurrently, said that he changed his position on masking due to potential shortages of protective personal equipment (PPE). “[My position on masking] has evolved over the weeks and months. When there was first discussion, it was at a time when face masks—either surgical masks or N95 respirators—were at high scarcity,” Fauci said in a National Geographic article published on May 4, 2020. He echoed this sentiment in his interview with InStyle published July 15, 2020: “I don’t regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct,“ Fauci said. “We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers…So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing.“
Of course, these reasons are mutually exclusive. Either Fauci knew asymptomatic transmission was an issue, and therefore dismissed masks’ efficacy to preserve stockpiles, or he didn’t know asymptomatic transmission was a factor (which it’s not), and therefore didn’t recommend them because he genuinely didn’t believe they’d be useful. Both explanations cannot be true simultaneously.
Fauci went on to highlight masks time and again as crucial mitigation tools, even for those who are vaccinated. When asked by former CNN news anchor Chris Cuomo on December 10, 2020 why vaccinated people still need to wear masks, Fauci responded: “[J]ust because you’re protected, so-called protected, by the vaccine…you could be prevented from getting clinical disease, and still have the virus that is in your nasopharynx because you could get infected.”
Fauci became so supportive of masking that by February, 2021 he said he often wears two. “There’s nothing wrong with people wearing two masks. I often, myself, wear two masks.” On March 18, 2021, in an exchange with Senator Rand Paul, Fauci stated “for the record that masks are not theater.“ And that “Masks are protective.“
Then—in a direct admission of lying—Fauci told Good Morning America on May 18, 2021 that “before the CDC made the recommendation change [on May 13, 2021], I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals. But being a fully vaccinated person the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low. And that’s the reason why in indoor settings now, I feel comfortable about not wearing a mask, because I’m fully vaccinated.”
On July 28, 2021, in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Fauci flip-flopped once again, saying that “the recommendations and the guidelines have been changed to say that if you are vaccinated, even though you are vaccinated, when you are in an indoor public setting, in an area of the country with a high degree of viral dynamics…then you need to wear a mask even though you are vaccinated.“
By August, 2021, however, Fauci was back to downplaying the efficacy of masks. “there are people who have tried their best…put masks on, washed their hands; this is a very transmissible virus,” Fauci said in an interview with Meet the Press.
FEBRUARY 5, 2020
“Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection. The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material…I do not recommend that you wear a mask…” – Anthony Fauci, February 5, 2020
MARCH 2020
“Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.…When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.” – Anthony Fauci, March, 2020
Fauci in his 60 Minutes interview: “the masks are important for somebody who’s infected to protect them from infecting someone else. Now, when you see people, and look at the films in China and South Korea, everybody is wearing a mask. Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.”
60 Minutes: “You’re sure of it?”
“Right now people should not be walking around—there’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And often, there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face… But when you think masks, you should think of healthcare providers needing them, and people who are ill. When you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks, that’s fine. I’m not against it…[But] it could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.”
APRIL 3, 2020 (LINK TO PBS NewsHour Video)
“So we want to make sure that this issue of having a broader community approach towards putting on a facial covering, doesn’t in fact get in the way of the primary purpose of masks, and in that regard, that’s why what we’re talking about are things that may not necessarily need to be a classical mask. But could be some sort of facial covering.” – Anthony Fauci, April 3, 2020
“The thinking now [on masks] really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus. But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking.…” – Anthony Fauci, April 3, 2020
Anthony Fauci to PBS: “The thinking now is really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus. But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking.…The important thing for people to fully appreciate is that putting a mask on yourself is more to prevent you from infecting someone else. And if everybody does that, we’re each protecting each other. Because the data is it’s more efficient to prevent transmitting to others than it is to prevent transmission to yourself. But you can completely cover that ball park if essentially universally when people go out and are in a situation where they might come into closer contact, they wear that mask.”
PBS: “If people are to wear [masks], what’s the guidance, under what circumstances and what kind of mask?”
“I’m glad you gave me the opportunity to address that, Judy, because the one thing that is paramount here, that we want to make sure that people don’t all of the sudden go out and buy and hoard masks that are most appropriately used and necessary for the frontline healthcare workers who do need it for the clear and present danger that they find themselves in when they’re taking care of people who are actually sick with coronavirus disease….So we want to make sure that this issue of having a broader community approach towards putting on a facial covering, doesn’t in fact get in the way of the primary purpose of masks, and in that regard, that’s why what we’re talking about are things that may not necessarily need to be a classical mask. But could be some sort of facial covering.“
MAY 4, 2020 (LINK TO ARTICLE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
“I’m glad you asked, because [my position on masking] has evolved over the weeks and months. When there was first discussion, it was at a time when face masks—either surgical masks or N95 respirators—were at high scarcity. – Anthony Fauci, May 4, 2020
Immediately below is Anthony Fauci’s response to a question about masks in the National Geographic article titled “Fauci: No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab”:
“I’m glad you asked, because it has evolved over the weeks and months. When there was first discussion, it was at a time when face masks—either surgical masks or N95 respirators—were at high scarcity.
“Let’s assume that we now have enough masks or that you could easily make a cloth covering, as was suggested appropriately by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I think those are reasonable assumptions. We know that the masks are better in the health-care setting to prevent someone who’s infected from coughing and sneezing and infecting people in the environment. When you look at what the mask does for the general population, the data are not 100 percent: It doesn’t 100 percent protect you from infecting somebody else, and it certainly doesn’t 100 percent prevent somebody else from infecting you.
“But if you wear a mask, you are getting some protection for yourself, and if you happen to be infected and don’t know it, you’re to some extent preventing transmission to someone else. Given that, it just makes sense that first of all, the best way to prevent spread is to maintain the physical distance of six feet.
“So, if you’re in a situation where you’re in contact with no one, then you don’t have to be walking around with a mask all day, that’s for sure. But if you are in a situation where you are going to be within the realm of six feet—the grocery store or even walking out on the street—then wear it.”
FEBRUARY 6, 2021 (LINK TO CHINA GLOBAL VIDEO)
“There’s nothing wrong with people wearing two masks. I often, myself, wear two masks.” – Anthony Fauci, February 6, 2021
JULY 15, 2020 (LINK TO INSTYLE MAGAZINE ARTICLE)
“I don’t regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers…So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing. But our knowledge changed and our realization of the state of the outbreak changed.” – Anthony Fauci, July 15, 2020
InStyle: “It’s been recently reminded to us by the White House that you advised against people wearing masks in public, and, of course, that was due to the surge because the concern was about saving PPEs for medical professionals. Do you regret that comment?”
Fauci: “No. I don’t regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of sick people. That’s what the dialogue was in the task force meetings, which led all of us, not just me but also [U.S. Surgeon General] Jerome Adams, to say, “Right now we really need to save the masks for the people who need them most.” When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don’t know they’re infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks. And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores. So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing. But our knowledge changed and our realization of the state of the outbreak changed.”
JULY 17, 2020 (LINK TO NBC NEWS VIDEO)
“Now early on, when we were in a situation in which there was a real concern about the lack of personal protective equipment on the part of the health providers who needed it….we were thinking we would run out of masks and other things for them. So the recommendation was not to wear a mask because of the shortage of it.” – Anthony Fauci, July 17, 2020
Fauci to Mark Zuckerberg: “One of the important things that we’re emphasizing right now, that really evolved from a situation that did change is our insistence now on wearing masks. I mean, masks are very important. They protect you from giving infection to someone else if you happen to be inadvertently infected and I’ll get back to that in a moment, because there’s such a significant percentage of the cases that are actually without symptoms….Now early on, when we were in a situation in which there was a real concern about the lack of personal protective equipment on the part of the health providers who needed it, who put themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of people who are ill with this virus, that we were thinking we would run out of masks and other things for them. So the recommendation was not to wear a mask because of the shortage of it. Two things happened: One, it became clear that we had enough equipment, so there was no shortage. It became clear that cloth coverings that you didn’t have to buy in the store, that you could make yourself, were adequate. And thirdly, and probably the most compelling thing, is when it became very clear that anywhere from 20-45% of people who were infected didn’t have any symptoms….”
DECEMBER 10, 2020 (LINK TO CHRIS CUOMO INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION)
Chris Cuomo: “Why do I have to keep wearing the mask after I get the vaccine?”
“[J]ust because you’re protected, so-called protected, by the vaccine…you could be prevented from getting clinical disease, and still have the virus that is in your nasopharynx because you could get infected.“ – Anthony Fauci, December 10, 2020
CUOMO: “Why do I have to keep wearing the mask after I get the vaccine? I thought it was going to protect me from the vaccine. What’s the answer?”
FAUCI: “Well, the answer is unless you get the overwhelming majority of the country vaccinated, and protected, and get that umbrella of what we call herd immunity, there’s still a lot of virus out there.
“So just because you’re protected, so-called protected, by the vaccine, you should need to remember that you could be prevented from getting clinical disease, and still have the virus that is in your nasopharynx because you could get infected.“
FEBRUARY 6, 2021 (LINK TO CHINA GLOBAL VIDEO)
“There’s nothing wrong with people wearing two masks. I often, myself, wear two masks.” – Anthony Fauci, February 6, 2021
MARCH 18, 2021 (LINK TO CNN VIDEO)
Rand Paul: “You’ve had the vaccine and you’re wearing two masks, isn’t that theater?“
“Let me state for the record that masks are not theater. Masks are protective.” – Anthony Fauci, March 18, 2021
APRIL 25, 2021 (LINK TO CNN VIDEO)
[I]t’s common sense to know that the risk when you are outdoors, which we have been saying all along, is extremely low. And if you are vaccinated it’s even lower,” – Anthony Fauci, April 25, 2021
“I don’t want to come out ahead of a CDC announcement but as you hinted yourself just now, a moment ago, that very soon, imminently in the next few days, very likely, the CDC will be coming out with updating their guidelines of what people who are vaccinated can do. And even some who are not vaccinated….The thing that’s on a lot of people’s minds is what about outdoors, ’cause obviously a lot of people are going to spending a lot of time, more outdoors now…and it’s common sense to know that the risk when you are outdoors, which we have been saying all along, is extremely low. And if you are vaccinated it’s even lower.”
MAY 13, 2021 – CDC CHANGES ITS GUIDANCE (PER NBC NEWS)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 no longer need to wear masks or physically distance — whether indoors or outdoors in most circumstances.” – NBC News
MAY 18, 2021 (LINK TO GOOD MORNING AMERICA VIDEO)
“I mean, before the CDC made the recommendation change, I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals. But being a fully vaccinated person the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low. And that’s the reason why in indoor settings now, I feel comfortable about not wearing a mask, because I’m fully vaccinated.” – Anthony Fauci, May 18, 2021
“I’m obviously careful because I’m a physician and a healthcare provider. I am now much more comfortable with people seeing me indoors without a mask. I mean, before the CDC made the recommendation change, I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals. But being a fully vaccinated person the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low. And that’s the reason why in indoor settings now, I feel comfortable about not wearing a mask, because I’m fully vaccinated.”
JUNE 3, 2021 (LINK TO CNN VIDEO)
So, of course, if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside the hospital setting actually do work…Of course people would’ve [masked] that’s so obvious.” – Anthony Fauci, June 3, 2021
Fauci addresses his email to former HHS secretary, Sylvia Burwell, which was discovered thanks to a FOIA request:
“[D]ata guides what you tell people and your policies. If March, April, May occur, you accumulate a lot more information and you modify and adjust your opinion and your recommendation based on current science and current data. So, of course, if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside the hospital setting actually do work, when we didn’t know it then, if we realized all of those things back then, then of course…Of course people would’ve [masked] that’s so obvious.”
JULY 28, 2021 (LINK TO MSBC MORNING JOE VIDEO)
“[I]t has been well documented, that even though it is a rare occurrence [vaccinated] individuals can and have transmitted the virus to uninfected individuals….for that reason the recommendations and the guidelines have been changed to say that if you are vaccinated, even though you are vaccinated, when you are in an indoor public setting, in an area of the country with a high degree of viral dynamics…then you need to wear a mask even though you are vaccinated.“ – Anthony Fauci, July 28, 2021
Even though two months ago—60 days ago—the CDC came out with the recommendation that individuals who are vaccinated do not need to wear masks indoors or outdoors, something has changed, and what has changed is the virus. The CDC hasn’t changed and the CDC hasn’t really flip-flopped at all. What’s happened is that when that earlier recommendation was made we were dealing predominately with the Alpha variant. And the Alpha variant when you look at individuals who are vaccinated, at the level of virus in the nasal pharynx of vaccinated people who might get a breakthrough infection that the level of virus was really very low, indicating that it would be extremely unlikely that a vaccinated person who would happen to get infected and that happens, because the vaccine is certainly not 100% effective, that that would be very unlikely that they would transmit. However now, we are dealing with the Delta variant. Which is really quite a lot more transmissible than the Alpha variant. Number one. Number two, the data are clear, the most recent data, that when a person who gets infected, who has been vaccinated, namely a breakthrough infection, and they get infected with the Delta Variant, that the level of virus in their nasal pharynx is about 1,000 times higher than with the Alpha variant. And it has been well documented, that even though it is a rare occurrence those individuals can and have transmitted the virus to uninfected individuals. And for that reason the recommendations and the guidelines have been changed to say that if you are vaccinated, even though you are vaccinated, when you are in an indoor public setting, in an area of the country with a high degree of viral dynamics…then you need to wear a mask even though you are vaccinated.
NOTE: Fauci also said in July of 2021 that “unvaccinated children of a certain age—greater than two years old—should be wearing masks.” Note that back in March of 2020 Fauci said that “often, there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face…“ How could three-year-olds figure out how to wear masks properly if Fauci admits that adults can’t?
AUGUST 8, 2021 (LINK TO MEET THE PRESS VIDEO)
“there are people who have tried their best…put masks on, washed their hands; this is a very transmissible virus.” – Anthony Fauci, August 8, 2021
Fauci to Meet the Press: “there are people who have tried their best…put masks on, washed their hands; this is a very transmissible virus. The best protection is getting vaccinated, there’s no doubt about that.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s two things you do with children who are not vaccinated. And that’s the recommendation; you surround them with those who can be vaccinated, whoever they are, teachers, personnel in the school, anyone, get them vaccinated, so protect the kids with a shield of vaccinated people. For the kids who can’t get vaccinated, that’s the reason why we’re having a strong recommendation that in the schools, everyone should wear a mask, whether or not you’re vaccinated.”
4. FLIP-FLOPPING ON VACCINE MANDATES
Fauci’s most heartless series of contradictions concerns the evolution of his “scientific” opinions regarding the implementation of vaccine mandates. Once again, as with masking and natural immunity, Fauci began by suggesting something sensible: that the federal government should not “mandate” nor “force” someone to get vaccinated. “I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public….If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine,” he said on August 18, 2020.
Almost exactly a year later, on August 8, 2021, Fauci confirmed his original position, telling Meet the Press that “As you know, and I’ve said it several times on your show that you’re not going to see…the federal government mandating vaccines for the country…”
Then—only two days later, on August 10, 2021—Fauci said on MSNBC “I’m sorry, I mean, I know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but I think we are in such a serious situation now, that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done.”
By September, 2021 Fauci was in support of full-blown coercion. “[T]here will have to be things that will essentially put pressure on [the unvaccinated],” Fauci told NBC News. “Such as, you’re not going to work in this particular agency or institution, you’re not going to be able to be to go this college or this university, unless in fact, you get vaccinated.”
By December of 2021, Fauci fully flipped, saying in an interview on CNBC that “When you talk about different interventions, one of which would be vaccination for travel—I have said and I’ll say it again to you for clarity—that that is something that is on the table that we consider.”
Then, in January of 2022, Fauci went as far as to express dismay that the federal government wasn’t able to implement a vaccine mandate. “It’s unfortunate that an attempt to promote a public health measure [the OSHA mandates] has been met with such resistance,” Fauci told Katie Couric in a January 14 interview. “it’s understood in the context of taking people’s liberties away from them when we’re really dealing with a public health crisis.“
AUGUST 18, 2020 (LINK TO CNN ARTICLE)
“I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public….If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine” – Anthony Fauci, August 18, 2020
From the CNN article: “’I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public,’ Fauci said on Tuesday during a Healthline.com town hall. Fauci said everyone has the right to refuse a vaccine. ‘If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine,’ he said.”
AUGUST 8, 2021 (LINK TO MEET THE PRESS VIDEO)
“As you know, and I’ve said it several times on your show that you’re not going to see…the federal government mandating vaccines for the country…“ – Anthony Fauci, August 8, 2021
“As you know, and I’ve said it several times on your show that you’re not going to see…the federal government mandating vaccines for the country…“
“I’m very much in favor of mandating, if you want to see patients and you want to participate in healthcare, you need to get vaccinated. Period.”
AUGUST 10, 2021 (LINK TO POST MILLENNIAL TWEET)
“I’m sorry, I mean, I know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but I think we are in such a serious situation now, that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done.” – Anthony Fauci, August 10, 2021
“I’m going to upset some people on this, but I think we should [mandate the vaccines for teachers], I mean we are in a critical situation now. We’ve 615,000-plus deaths and we are in a major surge now as we’re going into the Fall, into the school season. This is very serious business. You would wish that people would see why it’s so important to get vaccinated. But you’re not going to get mandates centrally from the federal government. But when you’re talking about local mandates, mandates for schools, for teachers, for universities, for colleges, I’m sorry, I mean, I know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but I think we are in such a serious situation now, that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done.”
SEPTEMBER 9, 2021 (LINK TO NBC NEWS VIDEO)
“And hopefully [people will get vaccinated] willingly. If not, there will have to be things that will essentially put pressure on them. Such as, you’re not going to work in this particular agency or institution, you’re not going to be able to be to go this college or this university, unless in fact, you get vaccinated.” – Anthony Fauci, September 9, 2021
“We’ve got to get [people who won’t get the vaccine] vaccinated. And hopefully they will do it willingly, if not, there will have to be things that will essentially put pressure on them. Such as, you’re not going to work in this particular agency or institution, you’re not going to be able to be to go this college or this university, unless in fact, you get vaccinated. And I believe that once we start doing that, you will see more and more people willingly get vaccinated.”
“[Vaccine mandates in schools are] not anything new. We have requirements for vaccination for a number of other diseases in the school system. So it would not be a unique situation to have requirements of children 12 years old and older to have the vaccination for COVID-19.”
DECEMBER 29, 2021 (LINK TO CNBC VIDEO)
“When you talk about different interventions, one of which would be vaccination for travel—I have said and I’ll say it again to you for clarity—that that is something that is on the table that we consider,” – Anthony Fauci, December 29, 2021
“Here’s the situation: When you talk about different interventions, one of which would be vaccination for travel—I have said and I’ll say it again to you for clarity—that that is something that is on the table that we consider. We consider all possible interventions and to whether or not it’s appropriate to make that implementation of that intervention. If things change and the situation changes that would warrant making a requirement on a plane domestically being a requirement, and the data shows that would be helpful we would do it.”
JANUARY 14, 2022 (LINK TO KATIE COURIC)
“It’s unfortunate that an attempt to promote a public health measure [the OSHA mandates] has been met with such resistance, because it is really for the purpose of the health of the nation that those requirements were proposed by the President and it’s unfortunate that somehow or other it’s not understood in that context, but it’s understood in the context of taking people’s liberties away from them when we’re really dealing with a public health crisis.” -Anthony Fauci, January 14, 2020
5. MOVING GOAL POSTS ON HERD IMMUNITY
Unlike his endlessly hypocritical guidelines on masking, natural immunity, and vaccine mandates, Fauci’s take on herd immunity was always cloudy. And, admittedly by Fauci himself, a figure the NIAID head generated based on polling.
On June 29, 2020 Fauci said that it was “unlikely” that a vaccine with an efficacy of around 70-75% injected into 70-75% of the population would get America to herd immunity.
By December 10, 2020, Fauci went from “unlikely” to “hopeful” that 75% of people vaccinated would get America to herd immunity. “If 75-or-more percent of the population decides they want to get vaccinated, I would hope…we will have that veil of protective herd immunity that would…really essentially protect all the vulnerables,” Fauci said in an interview with Chris Cuomo.
Then, later in December, 2020, Fauci—in a direct admission of lying—said that “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%…Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.“
In April of 2021, Fauci widened his range from the bottom of his original estimate to the top of his new estimate quoted in December, 2020. “If you’re talking about the classical issue of herd immunity we have a total blanket of protection over the community, we are estimating because we don’t know,” Fauci said in an interview with CNN. “We’re estimating that that’s about 70-85%,” he added.
Then, on May 29, 2021, he reverted back to his lower estimate. “[I]f we get 70% of the people vaccinated by the 4th of July…You may see blips, but it is unlikely that you’ll see the kind of surge that we saw in the late fall and the early winter,” Fauci told Meet the Press. Then, in July, 2021 Fauci said in an interview with MSNBC that “The Delta variant is here. So if we got 85-90% of the people vaccinated…we’d make it ultimately disappear if you had those many people.“
Finally, in late 2021 and early 2022, Fauci gave up on projecting a herd immunity percentage with any clarity or precision. “As I’ve said so many times, herd immunity is really a complicated issue,” Fauci said in a Forbes video. “We do not know what that number is right now.“ Fauci doubled down on that uncertainty in January 18, 2022, saying in a World Economic Forum podcast that it “[T]hat is going to be a very difficult calculation…when you talk about herd immunity…“
JUNE 29, 2020 (LINK TO VIDEO)
The Aspen Institute: “If only say 70, 75% of Americans are willing to get the vaccine, and it’s only say, 70 to 75% effective, is that going to get us to herd immunity?”
“Unlikely.“ -Anthony Fauci, June 29, 2020
“I doubt seriously that any vaccine will ever be 100% protective. The best that we’ve done is measles, which is 97-98% effective. That would be wonderful if we get there, I don’t think we will. I would settle for a 70-75% effective vaccine. ‘Cause that would bring you to that level, of what would be herd immunity level.”
The Aspen Institute: “A CNN poll and other polls have shown that about, in this neighborhood, about a third of Americans are not going to get the vaccine. They say they’re not going to get it even if it’s free and easy to get. Or they’re very very hesitant to get it. If only say 70, 75% of Americans are willing to get the vaccine, and it’s only say, 70 to 75% effective, is that going to get us to herd immunity?”
“Unlikely. And that’s one of the reasons why we have to make sure we engage the community as we’re doing now. To get community people to help us for people to understand that we’re doing everything we can to show that it’s safe and it’s effective. And it’s for the good of them as individuals and, in society, to take the vaccine.”
DECEMBER 10, 2020 (LINK TO CHRIS CUOMO INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION)
“If 75-or-more percent of the population decides they want to get vaccinated, I would hope, by the time we get to the end of the second quarter, into the summer that we will have enough people vaccinated that by the time we get to the fall in the third quarter of the year that we will have that veil of protective herd immunity that would…really essentially protect all the vulnerables.” – Anthony Fauci
DECEMBER 24, 2020 (LINK TO ARTICLE IN THE WASHINGTON TIMES)
“When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%…Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.” – Anthony Fauci, December 24, 2020
The Washington Times: “’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, who took his first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine Tuesday, told The Times. ‘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,’” Fauci also told The Times. “’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.‘”
APRIL 25, 2021 (LINK TO CNN VIDEO)
“If you’re talking about the classical issue of herd immunity we have a total blanket of protection over the community, we are estimating because we don’t know. We’re estimating that that’s about 70-85%,” – Anthony Fauci, April 25, 2021
“If you’re talking about the classical issue of herd immunity we have a total blanket of protection over the community, we are estimating because we don’t know. We’re estimating that that’s about 70-85%. However, even before you get to that, as you get more and more people vaccinated, you will reach a point even before then you will start to see the number of cases going down dramatically.”
MAY 29, 2021 (LINK TO MEET THE PRESS VIDEO)
“[I]f we get 70% of the people vaccinated by the 4th of July…You may see blips, but it is unlikely that you’ll see the kind of surge that we saw in the late fall and the early winter.” – Anthony Fauci, May 29, 2021
“If we get, which we will, to the goals that the President has established, namely if we get 70% of the people vaccinated by the 4th of July; namely, one single dose. And even more there after. You may see blips, but it is unlikely that you’ll see the kind of surge that we saw in the late fall and the early winter.“
JULY 28, 2021 (LINK TO MSNBC VIDEO)
“The Delta variant is here. So if we got 85-90% of the people vaccinated…we’d make it ultimately disappear if you had those many people.” – Anthony Fauci, July 28, 2021
“If we can get 80-85% of the population vaccinated, that is going to have a profound, beneficial effect, in the sense of really nailing down this outbreak. Because if you get that amount of people of people vaccinated, together with the people that have already been infected, you’re going to really restrict the ability of that virus to spread around.”
“The Delta variant is here. So if we got 85-90% of the people vaccinated, it isn’t that we wouldn’t be dealing with the Delta variant, it’s that the Delta variant would have very few places to go. When the virus doesn’t have a lot of leeway to find vulnerable targets, it tends to disappear. So we would deal with the Delta variant, but we’d make it ultimately disappear if you had those many people.”
SEPTEMBER 28, 2021 (LINK TO FORBES BREAKING NEWS VIDEO)
“As I’ve said so many times, herd immunity is really a complicated issue of protection by vaccination and those who have continued and durable protection following infection. We do not know what that number is right now.“ – Anthony Fauci, September 28, 2021
“As I’ve said so many times, herd immunity is really a complicated issue of protection by vaccination and those who have continued and durable protection following infection. We do not know what that number is right now. Herd immunity is a concept: namely that most people, whatever that number is, and it varies from infection to infection, for measles, it’s over 90%, you know when you are at herd immunity when the virus doesn’t have any opportunity to go from person to person. But right now we don’t know what that number is. And when you don’t know what that number is? Whadya do? You vaccinate as many people as you possibly can. As quickly and expeditiously as you possibly can. That’s what we should be concentrating on; not any particular number.”
JANUARY 18, 2022 (LINK TO PODCAST)
“[T]hat is going to be a very difficult calculation…when you talk about herd immunity…” – Anthony Fauci, January 18, 2022
“well, certainly the experience that we’ve had right now with COVID-19 and with SARS-CoV-2, is that that is going to be a very difficult calculation because when you talk about herd immunity and you talk about the protection in the community where you combine those who have been vaccinated with durable protection, and those who’ve been infected-recovered with durable protection. However when you have a virus in which the infection causes immunity that seems to wane rather quickly. In addition, when you’re dealing with a vaccine that is extraordinarily successful and protective vaccine, where the immunity also wanes there. And you have the third ingredient, is the virus, which as was recently described by several of the panelists, myself included, which has this extraordinary capability of mutating, developing new variants, and the new variants can be eluding the immune response.”
6. POSING FOR INSTYLE MAGAZINE
“I judge [my career] by my energy and my effectiveness. And right now, with all due modesty, I think I’m pretty effective. I certainly am energetic. And I think everybody thinks I’m doing more than an outstanding job,” – Anthony Fauci, July 15, 2020
“We are living through a historic pandemic, the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 100 years,” – Anthony Fauci May 9, 2021 (link)
Although Fauci said nothing uniquely contradictory in his July, 2020 interview with InStyle, the entire interview, taken alongside Fauci’s supposed recommendations, is one huge contradiction. At the height of what he would later refer to “a historic pandemic the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 100 years,” Fauci had at least two people from InStyle come out to his home to photograph and interview him. (Norah O’Donnell, the interviewer, and Frankie Alduino, the photographer.)
As Fauci noted on July 17, 2020 with Mark Zuckerberg, two days after his InStyle interview was published, 20-45% of people are transmitting asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. (According to Fauci’s own incorrect narrative.) If that were the case, even if O’Donnell and Alduino were completely healthy, they still could’ve been carrying the disease and transmitting when they came to see him in his home. Fauci’s wife, Dr. Christine Grady, also joined the group, making it a hang-out of four people. We also have obvious evidence that Fauci was not wearing a mask (for at least part of the time) that O’Donnell and Alduino were at his home. A pair of direct violations of his public health decrees. During this particular interview Fauci even says “cloth masks and homemade masks [are] as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores.” So why wasn’t he wearing one when his photos were taken?
Not only did Fauci unequivocally violate his own public health decrees—and pose, mask off, sunglasses on, looking “cool” by his pool—the NIAID Director also said that he thought everybody thought he was doing an “astounding job” at the time.
On April 11, 2020, the CDC reported that U.S. all-cause mortality was nearly 40% above normal levels:
On April 15, 2020, the day the InStyle magazine profile was published, the U.S. reported 2,718 coronavirus deaths.
7. FLIP-FLOPPING ON LAB ORIGINS
Fauci’s evolution on the origins of COVID-19 are just as wishy washy as any of his other policy stances. With the possible lab origins of the disease, however, Fauci was particularly unscrupulous in his duty to inform the public and provide unbiased scientific opinion.
In obvious and unequivocal disregard for the information he received in early 2020, Fauci promoted natural origins as the most likely source of the disease. Indeed, he has remained utterly mum regarding the evidence of lab origins brought forth to him in a now infamously (not recorded) February 1, 2020 conference call with Wellcome Trust director, Jeremey Farrar, Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Kristian Andersen, and other prominent scientists in the field of virology. There is an email trail, however, which shows a scientific consensus leaning toward a lab origin for SARS-CoV-2:
“The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen wrote to Fauci on January 31, 2020.
“[A] likely explanation [for the origin of SARS-CoV-2] could be something as simple as passage SARS-live CoVs in tissue culture on human cell lines (under BSL-2) for an extended period of time, accidentally creating a virus that would be primed for rapid transmission between humans via gain of furin site (from tissue culture) and adaption to human ACE2 receptor via repeated passage.” – Mike Farzan, also a Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps, said in an email to Fauci, et al. on February 2.
“I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function,” – Bob Garry, a virologist and researcher at Tulane University’s School of Medicine, added in the email chain with Fauci, Farzan, et al.
Virologist and evolutionary biologist Eddie Holmes, a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow and professor at the University of Sydney, apparently also told Farrar that he was “60-40” in favor of a lab origin. Farrar himself reported Holmes’ odds in the February 2, 2020 email exchange and said he himself was “50-50.”
NOTE: The email exchange was only un-redacted thanks to Republican House members James Comer and Jim Jordan, as well as two other congress members; Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Jerrold Nadler, Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.
Following the conference call, and then email chain with Farrar, Garry, Farzan, et al., Fauci sent an email response on February 4, 2020 to Farrar and Francis Collins, the director of the NIH at the time, saying only: “?? …Serial passage in ACE2-transgenic mice” which Comer, Jordan et al. say was a “Reaction to First Draft of [a study to be published in] Nature Medicine “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.”
That study, authored by Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert F. Garry (Bob Garry), was published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020. It made almost no mention of the points in favor of a lab origin from the email chain. Indeed, it argued the exact opposite interpretation of available data, noting in summary that the authors’ “analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.“
In a National Geographic article published on May 4, 2020, Fauci doubled down on this idea, noting emphatically that “[The scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.” (Note: This is an unequivocal lie according to what the convened scientists said about “engineered” features of SARS-CoV-2.)
Fauci received multiple emails from Collins encouraging him to suppress the idea of a lab origin for COVID-19. “Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy… “ Collins wrote to Fauci on April 16, 2020. “I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 would settle this. …Anything more we can do?“ Fauci responded by saying that: “I would not do anything about this right now. It [the lab-leak theory] is a shiny object that will go away in times [sic],”
A year later, however, and Fauci had flip-flopped. On May 21, 2021 Politifact’s Katie Sanders asked Fauci: “[A]re you still confident that it developed naturally?“ Fauci responded: “No, actually. …And that’s why I’ve said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.”
By June 3, 2021, however, Fauci had flip-flopped back to emphasizing the natural origins hypothesis, while paying lip service to a lab origin: “I still believe that the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human.…it could’ve been a lab leak.”
JANUARY 31, 2020 (LINK TO FAUCI EMAIL DUMP)
“The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Kristian Andersen
FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)
“[A] likely explanation [for the origin of SARS-CoV-2] could be something as simple as passage SARS-live CoVs in tissue culture on human cell lines (under BSL-2) for an extended period of time, accidentally creating a virus that would be primed for rapid transmission between humans via gain of furin site (from tissue culture) and adaption to human ACE2 receptor via repeated passage,” – Mike Farzan to Fauci, et al., February 2, 2020
“I am also agnostic on this—I do not have any experience of laboratory virology and don’t know what is likely or not in that context. From a (natural) evolutionary point of view the only thing here that strikes me as unusual is the furin cleavage site. It strongly suggests to me that we are missing something important in the origin of the virus,” – Andrew Rambaut to Fauci, et al., February 2, 2020
“I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function—that and you don’t change any other amino acid in S2? I just can’t figure out how this gets accomplished in nature,” – Bob Garry to Fauci, et al., February 2, 2020
FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(1)
FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(2)
FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(3)
FEBRUARY 4, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(4)
“[Eddie Holmes] 60-40 lab. I am 50-50…” – Jeremy Farrar to Anthony Fauci, February 4, 2020
FEBRUARY 2, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(5)
“I share your view that a swift convening of experts in a confidence inspiring framework (WHO seems really the only option) is needed, or the voices of conspiracy will quickly dominate, doing great potential harm to science and international harmony…” – Francis Collins, February 2, 2020
FEBRUARY 4, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(6)
“?? …Serial passage in ACE2-transgenic mice” – Anthony Fauci in an email to Drs. Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins, February 4, 2020
MARCH 17, 2020 (LINK TO NATURE MEDICINE STUDY)
“The genomic features described here may explain in part the infectiousness and transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2 in humans. Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here,” – Kristian Andersen et al., March 17, 2020
“While the analyses above suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may bind human ACE2 with high affinity, computational analyses predict that the interaction is not ideal and that the RBD sequence is different from those shown in SARS-CoV to be optimal for receptor binding. Thus, the high-affinity binding of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to human ACE2 is most likely the result of natural selection on a human or human-like ACE2 that permits another optimal binding solution to arise. This is strong evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is not the product of purposeful manipulation.“
APRIL 3, 2020 (LINK TO PBS NEWSHOUR VIDEO)
“[I]f we had known that this was highly transmissible early on when it was just in China I think other countries would’ve maybe be more quick on the trigger to try and inhabit travel from China to their country….So that delay in transparency, I think likely had an impact…” – Anthony Fauci, April 3, 2020
“When the numbers started coming in, as to what the morbidity and mortality was, it was during that period in early to mid January that it became clear to me that this was not just another SARS, this was not just another MERS…this was different.”
PBS NewsHour: “I think you’re aware of reporting that the Chinese were not transparent about all of this in the very beginning. The question now that is arising though, is people are asking if they had been more transparent in the very beginning would it have prevented the spread of this virus, period, or would it have simply given more countries…like the United States time to prepare?”
“What could’ve been different—and this is something that people are going to reflect on when this is all over, as they try and analyze what actually happened, is that, if we had known that this was highly transmissible early on when it was just in China I think other countries would’ve maybe be more quick on the trigger to try and inhabit travel from China to their country….So that delay in transparency, I think likely had an impact on what I just said. The awareness that this could seed the rest of the world.”
PBS NewsHour: “All that points right back to Chinese officials, doesn’t it?”
“Looks that way.”
APRIL 16, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(7)
“Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy… I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence ofSARS-CoV-2 would settle this. …Anything more we can do?” Francis Collins to Anthony Fauci, et al. April 16, 2020
APRIL 17, 2020 (LINK TO IN-CAMERA REVIEW OF EMAILS)(8)
“I would not do anything about this right now. It [the lab-leak theory] is a shiny object that will go away in times [sic],” – Anthony Fauci, April 17, 2020
MAY 4, 2020 (LINK TO ARTICLE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC)
“[The scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” – Anthony Fauci, May 4, 2020
“If you look at the evolution of the virus in bats and what’s out there now, [the scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species,” Fauci said in the National Geographic interview. The article’s author also noted that: “Based on the scientific evidence, he also doesn’t entertain an alternate theory—that someone found the coronavirus in the wild, brought it to a lab, and then it accidentally escaped.”
National Geographic: “What if scientists found the virus outside the lab, brought it back, and then it escaped?
“But that means it was in the wild to begin with. That’s why I don’t get what they’re talking about [and] why I don’t spend a lot of time going in on this circular argument.“
MAY 21, 2021 (LINK TO POLITIFACT’S VIDEO)
Katie Sanders: “There’s a lot of cloudiness about the origins of COVID-19, still, so I wanted to ask, are you still confident that it developed naturally?“
“No, actually. …And that’s why I’ve said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus,” – Anthony Fauci, May 21, 2021
“No, actually. And that’s the point that I said. And I think the real unfortunate aspect of what Senator Paul did is he was conflating research in a collaborative way with Chinese scientists, which was, you’d almost have to say if we did not do that, we would almost be irresponsible, because SARS-CoV-1 clearly originated in China, and we were fortunate to escape a major pandemic. So we really had to learn a lot more about the viruses were there. About whether or not people were getting infected with bat viruses, so in a very minor collaboration as part of a subcontract of a grant, we had a collaboration with some Chinese scientists. And what he conflated that is therefore we were involved in creating the virus. Which is the most ridiculous majestic leap I’ve ever heard of it. But no, I’m not convinced about that. I think that we should continue to investigate what went on in China until we find out to the best of our ability exactly what happened. Certainly the people who’ve investigated say it likely was the emergence from an animal reservoir that then infected individuals, but it could’ve been something else. And we need to find that out. And that’s why I’ve said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.
JUNE 3, 2021 (LINK TO CNN VIDEO)
“I still believe that the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human.…it could’ve been a lab leak.“ – Anthony Fauci, June 3, 2021
“I still believe that the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human. But I keep an absolutely open mind that there may be other origins of that. There may be another reason; it could’ve been a lab leak. I believe if you look historically what happens in the animal-human interface that in fact the more likelihood [sic] you’re dealing with a jumper species. But I keep an open mind all the time. And that’s the reason I have been public that we should continue to look for the origin.”
JANUARY 11, 2022 (LINK TO VIDEO)
“[Y]ou’re going back to that original discussion when I brought together a group of people to look at every possibility with an open mind,” – Anthony Fauci to Rand Paul, January 11, 2022
Rand Paul: “You conspired with Peter Daszak, who you communicated with privately, and other members of the scientific community that wrote opinion pieces for Nature—five of them signed a paper for Nature, an opinion piece, 17 signed a paper that called it conspiracy theory, the idea that the virus could’ve originated in the lab. Do you think words like ‘conspiracy theory’ should be in a scientific paper?
“Senator, I never used that word when I was referring to it. You’re distorting virtually everything—”
Rand Paul: “Did you talk to any of the scientists privately who wrote the opinion, you did, what were they telling you privately?”
“You know you’re going back to that original discussion when I brought together a group of people to look at every possibility with an open mind. So not only are you distorting it, you are completely turning it around, as you usually do.”
8. VACCINE EFFICACY
Despite the fact that Fauci touted the COVID-19 “vaccines” as providing “95% [protection for] you against clinically recognizable disease, and almost 100% in protecting you from severe disease,” on December 10, 2020 in an interview with Chris Cuomo, Fauci has “evolved” on this topic to the point where he now (as of February 2022) recommends that immunocompromised people get a fourth shot.
Unlike his alternating stance on masking, natural immunity, and vaccine mandates, Fauci’s assessment of the vaccines themselves as effective and worthwhile for all eligible people was set early and has remained unchanged; his belief in the “vaccinations” is upheld time and again with the utmost conviction. (Even when he’s simultaneously pleading with people to go out and take booster shots.)
Fauci has also continuously maintained that there is always the potential for so-called “breakthrough infections.” Even teeing up the idea early on in the vaccines’ launch when he said on March 26, 2021 “we know, that at this point in time, it is unclear whether when you get vaccinated and you might be protected from clinical disease—which is the primary endpoint of the vaccine studies—that you can conceivably be infected, have virus in your nasal pharynx and at that same time have no symptoms.”
By July 27, 2021, Fauci was certain that “[V]accinated people who get breakthrough infections can actually transmit their virus to others.”
In an interview on August 8, 2021 with Meet The Press, Fauci said “There’s no doubt that over time, you’re going to have an attenuation of protection.“ He added that “everyone assumes, and I think correctly, that sooner or later you’re going to see an attenuation to the point where we’re going to have to give an additional boost to people.”
By January, 2022, Fauci was on to speculating about the same “attenuation” of efficacy of the booster shots. “We do not know yet fully what the durability of the third booster shot of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J are…” Fauci told Katie Couric on January 14, 2022. “[W]here [the virus is] breaking through and people are getting ill despite that boost, then very likely there will be a recommendation for another shot.“ Days later, on January 19, 2022, Fauci said in an interview with Yahoo Finance that “It just seems rather unusual that people are waiting for something else when you have… billions of doses throughout the world, hundreds of millions of doses in the United States, of a vaccine that is incontrovertibly proven to be highly effective and safe. Not in thousands of people, but in billions of people.” He went on to say moments later that “[T]he jury is still out as to whether or not we need a fourth dose. [T]he exception is in immune-compromised people. Who very well may not have had a good response, or any response, to the prior vaccinations.“
As of February, 2022 Fauci says that “More than six months after the second dose, [protection] wanes with Omicron to 57[%].“
MARCH 26, 2020 (LINK TO CHAN ZUCKERBERG INITIATIVE VIDEO)
“There’s another element to [vaccine] safety. And that is if you vaccinate someone, and they make an antibody response and then they get exposed and infected, does the response that you produced enhance the infection and make it worse? …This would not be the first time, if it happened, that a vaccine that looked good in initial safety, actually made people worse,” Anthony Fauci, March 26, 2020
Immediately below is an excerpt from the below interview between Fauci and Mark Zuckerberg. Note that Fauci brings up something he rarely does: a possible downside of vaccination:
“There’s another element to [vaccine] safety. And that is if you vaccinate someone, and they make an antibody response and then they get exposed and infected, does the response that you produced enhance the infection and make it worse? And the only way you’ll know that is if you do an extended study, not in a normal volunteer, who has no risk of infection, but in people who are out there in a risk situation. This would not be the first time, if it happened, that a vaccine that looked good in initial safety, actually made people worse. There was the history of the respiratory syncytial virus vaccine in children, which paradoxically made the children worse. One of the HIV vaccines that we tested several years ago actually made individuals more likely to get infected. So you can’t just go out there and give it, unless you feel that in the field, when someone is getting infected and exposed, being vaccinated doesn’t make them worse. That’s why you gotta do a trial.”
DECEMBER 10, 2020 (LINK TO TRANSCRIPTION OF CHRIS CUOMO INTERVIEW)
“We’re not sure, at this point, that the vaccine protects you against getting infected. We know for sure it’s very, very good, 94%, 95% in protecting you against clinically recognizable disease, and almost a 100% in protecting you for severe disease.” – Anthony Fauci, December 10, 2020
FEBRUARY 28, 2021 (LINK TO TWEET)
“One of the things that’s universal here, that we know, that at this point in time, it is unclear whether when you get vaccinated and you might be protected from clinical disease—which is the primary endpoint of the vaccine studies—that you can conceivably be infected, have virus in your nasal pharynx and at that same time have no symptoms,” – Anthony Fauci, February 28, 2021
“So there are things, even if you’re vaccinated, that you’re not going to be able to do in society. For example, indoor dining, theaters, places where people congregate; that’s because of the safety of society.”
“One of the things that’s universal here, that we know, that at this point in time, it is unclear whether when you get vaccinated and you might be protected from clinical disease—which is the primary endpoint of the vaccine studies—that you can conceivably be infected, have virus in your nasal pharynx and at that same time have no symptoms. Which is the reason why, we recommend and say you still need to wear a mask. Because if you do have virus in your nasal pharynx, even though we hope that when the data comes in it’s going to show that the virus level is quite low and you’re not transmitting it, we don’t know that now. And for that reason, we want to make sure that people continue to wear masks despite the fact that they’re vaccinated.
JULY 27, 2021 (LINK TO NBC NEWS VIDEO)
“[V]accinated people who get breakthrough infections can actually transmit their virus to others.” – Anthony Fauci, July 27, 2021
“[V]accinated people who get breakthrough infections can actually transmit their virus to others. It’s something that happens rarely, it’s not a common event, but since it does, that has triggered a change in the guidelines for wearing masks by vaccinated people. Even if you’re vaccinated, if you live in an area that has a substantial and high degree of transmissibility, the recommendation is that people who are vaccinated when they are in an indoor setting, that they should wear a mask.”
AUGUST 8, 2021 (LINK TO MEET THE PRESS VIDEO)
“[Y]ou can expect that…if you’re infected you can transmit it to someone else even if you’re vaccinated.” – Anthony Fauci, August 8, 2021
“There’s no doubt that over time, you’re going to have an attenuation of protection. …[E]veryone assumes, and I think correctly, that sooner or later you’re going to see an attenuation to the point where we’re going to have to give an additional boost to people,” – Anthony Fauci, August 8, 2021
“Since no vaccine is 100% protective, there will be what we call breakthrough infections…Almost invariably, that will be an infection that is either without symptoms or minimally symptomatic. Which means the vaccine still protects extremely well against severe disease leading to hospitalization and deaths.”
“[T]he interesting and unfortunate thing that we found out that gets to the mask issue is that this virus is so easily transmissible, that if a vaccinated person gets an infection, which will happen…you can expect that, because no vaccine is 100% effective, back when we were dealing with the Alpha variant, the level of virus was very low in the nasal pharynx of a vaccinated person if they got infected, now we’re finding that the level of virus is really quite high which means one of the bad things about all of this is that even though you’re protected from getting severe disease, if you’re infected you can transmit it to someone else even if you’re vaccinated. And that’s the fundamental basis of now saying people should be wearing masks in indoor public places if you’re in a region with a high level of infection.”
“There’s no doubt that over time, you’re going to have an attenuation of protection. If you look at the data from Pifzer, Pfizer shows that it went down from the 90s down to around 84 after a few months. The recent data from Moderna shows that it really isn’t going down. But everyone assumes, and I think correctly, that sooner or later you’re going to see an attenuation to the point where we’re going to have to give an additional boost to people.”
JANUARY 14, 2022 (LINK TO CATIE COURIC INTERVIEW)
“We do not know yet fully what the durability of the third booster shot of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J are….where [the virus is] breaking through and people are getting ill despite that boost, then very likely there will be a recommendation for another shot.” – Anthony Fauci, January 14, 2022
“You have to look at the compartments in which [the virus] infects. So if you get infected in your upper airway, and…it goes to the lung and it goes throughout the body…is that you can get get very very seriously ill, but getting the virus to be blocking from re-coming back into your upper airway, you really need to have the immune system concentrated at the upper airway, which is not easy to do when you have a vaccine that systemically is given to you and you have a systemic manifestation of disease.”
“We do not know yet fully what the durability of the third booster shot of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J are, when we see that, if we see it…go down to the point where it’s breaking through and people are getting ill despite that boost, then very likely there will be a recommendation for another shot. But we still need to find out really what is the durability.”
JANUARY 19, 2022 (LINK TO YAHOO FINANCE VIDEO)
“It just seems rather unusual that people are waiting for something else when you have… billions of doses throughout the world, hundreds of millions of doses in the United States, of a vaccine that is incontrovertibly proven to be highly effective and safe. Not in thousands of people, but in billions of people,” – Anthony Fauci, January 19, 2022
“[T]he jury is still out as to whether or not we need a fourth dose. [T]he exception is in immune-compromised people. Who very well may not have had a good response, or any response, to the prior vaccinations,” Anthony Fauci, January 19, 2022
Anjalee Khemlani: “There are also some, a small pocket, of people holding out for other vaccines. As well as a new report showing that maybe a fourth dose is not necessarily effective, and I know you’ve talked about waiting to see how long the protection lasts and so I just wondered, these two sort of different issues at the same time, also adding, you know, to the problems, people not being sure, maybe waiting for other vaccines, can you talk us through that?…When it comes to trying to get the public to get vaccinated.
“It just seems rather unusual that people are waiting for something else when you have vaccines that have been given now…nine billion doses of vaccines. When you have billions of doses throughout the world, hundreds of millions of doses in the United States, of a vaccine that is incontrovertibly proven to be highly effective and safe. Not in thousands of people, but in billions of people. So I’m not sure what people are waiting for, when you say they’re waiting for something else. The idea about a fourth dose and I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it, is that, we want to wait to see what the durability of protection against significant disease is with the third dose. So if you get breakthrough infections that we are seeing with Omicron with the vaccine and the third dose, the boost, if you’re getting infected, and you’re either asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic, you may not need a fourth shot as long as you’re protected against significant disease. And that’s what I mean when I say the jury is still out as to whether or not we need a fourth dose. We might, it’s entirely conceivable, that we might, but I think that before we rush to a fourth dose, I would be careful to see what the result of the third dose is. However, there is an exception to that. And the exception is in immune-compromised people. Who very well may not have had a good response, or any response, to the prior vaccinations. We know now that when you give an extra boost to an immunocompromised person—someone who has a transplant, or is on cancer chemotherapy or immunosuppressive therapy for autoimmune disease—that you not infrequently can get them back up to a reasonably good level. So that’s the exception. But for the rest of the generally normal population, I think it’s important for us to see what the third dose of an mRNA and the second dose of a J&J is.”
FEBRUARY 9, 2022 (LINK TO CBS NEWS VIDEO)
“More than six months after the second dose, [protection] wanes with Omicron to 57[%]” – Anthony Fauci, February 9, 2022
“genomic mean titer of antibody…namely, the proteins that neutralize the virus. If you look at the far left hand side of the slide, seven months after people receive a second dose and before the booster look how low the response is to Omicron…it’s 23; one month after the booster, it goes way up until the highly protective zone of 850, and even sixth months after the booster, it is still at a high level of 136, way above what it was seven months after the second dose.”
“[I]f you look at the result in blue, of the cumulative incidence of COVID-19 following a booster shot, the difference [from only two doses] is dramatic….Booster doses reconstitute the waning protection [from original vaccination] especially against severe disease, hospitalization, and death.”
“More than six months after the second dose, [protection] wanes with Omicron to 57[%]”
9. PROMOTION OF ASYMPTOMATIC TRANSMISSION
Key to three critical components of the so-called pandemic response—masking, social distancing, and lockdowns—has been the idea of “asymptomatic” transmission of COVID-19. Without asymptomatic transmission—that is, the idea that healthy people can transmit SARS-CoV-2—none of these three devastating, world-changing measures would’ve been necessary.
Like his stances on masking, vaccine mandates, and natural immunity, Fauci’s initial thoughts on asymptomatic transmission were completely in tune with reality.
“Even if there is some asymptotic transmission, in all the history of respiratory-borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks,” Fauci said at an HHS conference on January, 28, 2020. More completely, he said that: “[O]ne thing historically people need to realize is that even if there is some asymptomatic transmission, in all the history of respiratory-borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks. The driver of outbreaks is always a symptomatic person. Even if there is a rare asymptomatic person that might transmit, an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers.”
By April 23, 2020, however, Fauci had flip-flopped. “The thinking now is really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus,” Fauci said in an interview with PBS NewsHour. “But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking.” In a July 15, 2020 interview with InStyle magazine, Fauci said that “When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don’t know they’re infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks.”
NOTE: On June 8, 2020, the technical lead of COVID-19 response and the head of emerging diseases and zoonosis unit at WHO, Maria Van Kerkhove, said that “[F]rom the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.” Kerkhove added “We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact-tracing, they’re following asymptomatic cases, they’re following contacts, and they’re not finding secondary transmission onward; it’s very rare.“ (This is direct, unequivocal evidence Fauci was lying when he said “the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus.”)
On July 16, 2020, incredibly, Fauci said, in so many words, that he had no idea what the level of asymptomatic transmission was amongst the population. Richard of TWiV asked Fauci: “What’s your current perspective on the fraction of transmission now that’s either asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic versus symptomatic?“ Fauci responded: “You know [laughs], I know you were going to ask that. I like these questions, because there’s no right or wrong answer because we don’t know. But we can guess, as long as we don’t take our guesses too seriously. So, you know, I think it has to be substantial, if you combine asymptomatic with pre-symptomatic and you look at the circumstances in which it spread you get individual instances….”
Despite his admission that he didn’t know what the level of asymptomatic transmission was—despite evidence coming in that showed it was not a factor per Van Kerkhove—Fauci has continued to highlight asymptomatic individuals as a major source of transmission. Fauci told Mark Zuckerberg on July 17, 2020 “[T]he recommendation was not to wear a mask because of the shortage of it. Then “It became clear that cloth coverings that you didn’t have to buy in the store, that you could make yourself, were adequate. And…the most compelling thing, is when it became very clear that anywhere from 20-45% of people who were infected didn’t have any symptoms….“
As of this writing, Fauci has not changed his position to match that of Kerkhove’s, or the overwhelming evidence from numerous studies. On June 3, 2021 in an interview with CNN Fauci said that “if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside the hospital setting actually do work…Of course people would’ve [masked] that’s so obvious.”
JULY 17, 2020 (LINK TO NBC NEWS VIDEO)
“And thirdly, and probably the most compelling thing, is when it became very clear that anywhere from 20-45% of people who were infected didn’t have any symptoms….” – Anthony Fauci, July 17, 2020
JANUARY 28, 2020 (LINK TO TWEET / LINK TO HHS CONFERENCE)
“Even if there is some asymptotic transmission, in all the history of respiratory-borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks,” – Anthony Fauci, January 28, 2020
“We would really like to see the data, because if there is asymptomatic transmission, it impacts certain policies that you do regarding screening, etc. But the one thing historically people need to realize is that even if there is some asymptomatic transmission, in all the history of respiratory-borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks. The driver of outbreaks is always a symptomatic person. Even if there is a rare asymptomatic person that might transmit, an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers.”
APRIL 3, 2020 (LINK TO PBS NewsHour Video)
“The thinking now is really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus. But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking,” – Anthony Fauci, April 3, 2020
“The thinking now is really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus. But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking.…The important thing for people to fully appreciate is that putting a mask on yourself is more to prevent you from infecting someone else. And if everybody does that, we’re each protecting each other. Because the data is it’s more efficient to prevent transmitting to others than it is to prevent transmission to yourself. But you can completely cover that ball park if essentially universally when people go out and are in a situation where they might come into closer contact, they wear that mask.”
JUNE 8, 2020 (LINK TO BLOOMBERG VIDEO)
“But from the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” – Maria Van Kerkhove, June 8, 2020
“So there’s a couple of things in the question you just asked, one is the number of cases that are reported, that are being reported as asymptomatic. So we hear from a number of countries that X number X percentage of them are reported as not having symptoms, or they are in their pre-symptomatic phase, which means it’s a few days before they actually develop severe symptoms. In a number of countries when we go back and we discuss with them, one: how are these asymptomatic cases being identified? Many of them are being identified through contact tracing, which is what we would want to see; in that you have a known case, you find your contacts, they’re already in quarantine, hopefully, and some of them are tested and then you pick up people who may have asymptomatic or no symptoms or even mild symptoms. The other thing we’re finding is when we actually go back and say how many of them were truly asymptomatic, we find out that many have really mild disease, very mild disease, they’re not quote-un-quote COVID symptoms. Meaning they may have not developed fever yet, they may not have had a significant cough, or they may not have shortness of breath. But some may have mild disease. Having said that we do know that there can be people who are truly asymptomatic and PCR positive.
“The second part of your question is what proportion of asymptomatic individuals actually transmit; so the way we look at that is we look at that—these individuals need to be followed carefully, over the course of when they are detected and looking at secondary transmission. We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact-tracing, they’re following asymptomatic cases, they’re following contacts, and they’re not finding secondary transmission onward; it’s very rare. And much of that is not published in the literature. From the papers that are published there’s one that came out from Singapore looking at a long-term care facility, there are some household transmission studies, where you follow individuals over time and you look at the proportion of those that transmit onwards. We are constantly looking at this data, and we’re trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question, it still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward. What we really want to be focused on, is following the symptomatic cases; if we followed all of the symptomatic cases because we know this is a respiratory pathogen, it passes from an individual through infectious droplets, if we actually followed all of the symptomatic cases, isolated those cases, followed the contacts and quarantined those contacts, we would drastically reduce—I would love to give a proportion of how transmission we would actually stop—but it would be a drastic reduction in transmission. If we could focus on that, I think we would do very very well in terms of suppressing transmission. But from the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual.“
JULY 15, 2020 (LINK TO INSTYLE MAGAZINE ARTICLE)
“When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don’t know they’re infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks,” Anthony Fauci, July 15, 2021
InStyle: “It’s been recently reminded to us by the White House that you advised against people wearing masks in public, and, of course, that was due to the surge because the concern was about saving PPEs for medical professionals. Do you regret that comment?”
Fauci: “No. I don’t regret anything I said then because in the context of the time in which I said it, it was correct. We were told in our task force meetings that we have a serious problem with the lack of PPEs and masks for the health providers who are putting themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of sick people. That’s what the dialogue was in the task force meetings, which led all of us, not just me but also [U.S. Surgeon General] Jerome Adams, to say, ‘Right now we really need to save the masks for the people who need them most.‘ When it became clear that the infection could be spread by asymptomatic carriers who don’t know they’re infected, that made it very clear that we had to strongly recommend masks. And also, it soon became clear that we had enough protective equipment and that cloth masks and homemade masks were as good as masks that you would buy from surgical supply stores. So in the context of when we were not strongly recommending it, it was the correct thing. But our knowledge changed and our realization of the state of the outbreak changed.”
JULY 16, 2020 (LINK TO VINCENT RACANIELLO’S VIDEO)
Richard (TWiV): “What’s your current perspective on the fraction of transmission now that’s either asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic versus symptomatic?”
“You know [laughs], I know you were going to ask that. I like these questions, because there’s no right or wrong answer because we don’t know. But we can guess, as long as we don’t take our guesses too seriously. So, you know, I think it has to be substantial, if you combine asymptomatic with pre-symptomatic and you look at the circumstances in which it spread you get individual instances… .” – Tony Fauci, July 16, 2020
Richard (TWiV): “What’s your current perspective on the fraction of transmission now that’s either asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic versus symptomatic?”
“You know [laughs], I know you were going to ask that. I like these questions, because there’s no right or wrong answer because we don’t know. But we can guess, as long as we don’t take our guesses too seriously. So, you know, I think it has to be substantial, if you combine asymptomatic with pre-symptomatic and you look at the circumstances in which it spread you get individual instances, like what happened on the Teddy Rosevelt Nuclear carrier where you had a few symptomatic sailors and 1,000 sailors got infected. I can’t imagine, Richard, that one symptomatic person coughed on 1,000 people and infected them. It would almost have to be a substantial amount of asymptomatic carriage and transmission.”
JULY 17, 2020 (LINK TO NBC NEWS VIDEO)
“And thirdly, and probably the most compelling thing, is when it became very clear that anywhere from 20-45% of people who were infected didn’t have any symptoms….” – Anthony Fauci, July 17, 2020
“One of the important things that we’re emphasizing right now, that really evolved from a situation that did change is our insistence now on wearing masks. I mean, masks are very important. They protect you from giving infection to someone else if you happen to be inadvertently infected and I’ll get back to that in a moment, because there’s such a significant percentage of the cases that are actually without symptoms….Now early on, when we were in a situation in which there was a real concern about the lack of personal protective equipment on the part of the health providers who needed it, who put themselves in harm’s way every day to take care of people who are ill with this virus, that we were thinking we would run out of masks and other things for them. So the recommendation was not to wear a mask because of the shortage of it. Two things happened: One, it became clear that we had enough equipment, so there was no shortage. It became clear that cloth coverings that you didn’t have to buy in the store, that you could make yourself, were adequate. And thirdly, and probably the most compelling thing, is when it became very clear that anywhere from 20-45% of people who were infected didn’t have any symptoms….”
JUNE 3, 2021 (LINK TO CNN VIDEO)
So, of course, if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside the hospital setting actually do work…Of course people would’ve [masked] that’s so obvious.” – Anthony Fauci, June 3, 2021
Fauci addresses his email to former HHS secretary, Sylvia Burwell, which was discovered thanks to a FOIA request:
“[D]ata guides what you tell people and your policies. If March, April, May occur, you accumulate a lot more information and you modify and adjust your opinion and your recommendation based on current science and current data. So, of course, if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside the hospital setting actually do work, when we didn’t know it then, if we realized all of those things back then, then of course…Of course people would’ve [masked] that’s so obvious.”
In Summary:
Fauci is best understood as a snake. A snake who hides amongst a pile of autumn leaves. Where each leaf is another one of his lies under which he can sliver for cover when asked a direct question about his past or any of his policy recommendations.
Pinning Anthony Fauci down on any issue seems impossible because he quickly disappears head-first into his pile of lies when he’s been uncovered. His overly broad responses—rarely, if ever, supported by any cited scientific studies—allow him to remain slippery; even when somebody catches him point blank, as Sanjay Gupta did when he asked Fauci about vaccination after naturally acquired immunity, he manages to squirm away with a “I don’t really have a firm answer for you on that” as a response.
Laid bare here are only the top nine ways Fauci the snake has hissed and slithered his way through public health since 2020. There are countless more. And each one of them deserves to be leveled as a charge of crimes against humanity against the ever-elusive deep state doctor.
To recap:
1. LYING ABOUT FUNDING GAIN-OF-FUNCTION RESEARCH
Fauci told Senator Rand Paul on May 11, 2021 that “we [the NIAID/NIH] did not fund gain of function research to be conducted in the Wuhan Institute of Virology” and that “Dr. [Ralph] Baric is not doing gain of function research“ at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
These statements are inarguably lies, as the PNAS paper from 2015 authored by Zhengli-Li Shi, Ralph Baric, et al. says the authors “synthesized the SHC014 spike in the context of the replication-competent, mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone…to maximize the opportunity for pathogenesis and vaccine studies in mice.“ The authors also noted that their chimeric viruses did indeed show a “gain in pathogenesis.“
Likewise, the EcoHealth Alliance report from 2018-2019 submitted to the NIAD noted that one of its “specific aims” was “Testing Predictions of CoV Inter-Species Transmission.” The report goes on to discuss “In vivo infection of Human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice with SARSr-CoV S protein variants” and the use of engineered chimeric viruses to infect Human ACE2 (hACE2) expressing mice.
2. DOWNPLAYING THE ROBUSTNESS OF NATURAL IMMUNITY
Despite the fact Fauci supported the idea of robust natural immunity after COVID-19 infection early on, he flip-flopped and became unnecessarily skeptical. “It’s obvious that many people make a very adequate immune response“ to SARS-CoV-2 Fauci said in a May 4, 2020 interview with National Geographic. “They clear the virus, and they do well.”
Then, on August 8, 2021 Fauci said on NBC News that “”[I]f you’ve had COVID, you might be protected for a while against the original virus that you were infected with, but when variants come along, you are vulnerable.…That’s the reason why we strongly recommend that even if you have been infected, you get vaccinated.“
But when CNN host Sanjay Gupta asked Fauci “Should [people who’ve recovered] also get the vaccine? How do you make the case to them?“ on September 10, 2021, Fauci responded: “I don’t have really have a firm answer for you on that.”
3. FLIP-FLOPPING ON THE EFFICACY OF MASKING
As with natural immunity after infection, Fauci began the COVID-19 saga with a commonsense view. “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through the material,” Fauci wrote to Sylvia Burwell, HHS Secretary under Obama (2014-2017), on February 5, 2020. “I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.“ In a 60 Minutes interview in March of 2020 Fauci doubled down on the inefficacy of masking. “Right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.…When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is,” Fauci said. He even noted that “there are unintended consequences” of wearing masks.
Fauci, however, flip-flopped. He became so supportive of masking that by February, 2021 he said he often wears two. “There’s nothing wrong with people wearing two masks. I often, myself, wear two masks.” On March 18, 2021, in an exchange with Senator Rand Paul, Fauci stated “for the record that masks are not theater.” And that “Masks are protective.“
Then—in a direct admission of lying—Fauci told Good Morning America on May 18, 2021 that “before the CDC made the recommendation change [on May 13, 2021], I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals. But being a fully vaccinated person the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low. And that’s the reason why in indoor settings now, I feel comfortable about not wearing a mask, because I’m fully vaccinated.”
On July 28, 2021, in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Fauci flip-flopped once again, saying that “the recommendations and the guidelines have been changed to say that if you are vaccinated, even though you are vaccinated, when you are in an indoor public setting, in an area of the country with a high degree of viral dynamics…then you need to wear a mask even though you are vaccinated.“
4. FLIP-FLOPPING ON VACCINE MANDATES
Once again, as with masking and natural immunity, Fauci began by suggesting the federal government should not “mandate” nor “force” someone to get vaccinated. “I don’t think you’ll ever see a mandating of vaccine, particularly for the general public….If someone refuses the vaccine in the general public, then there’s nothing you can do about that. You cannot force someone to take a vaccine,” he said on August 18, 2020. Nearly a year later, on August 8, 2021, Fauci confirmed his original position, telling Meet the Press that “As you know, and I’ve said it several times on your show that you’re not going to see…the federal government mandating vaccines for the country…“
Only two days later, on August 10, 2021, Fauci said on MSNBC “I’m sorry, I mean, I know people must like to have their individual freedom and not be told to do something, but I think we are in such a serious situation now, that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done.”
By December of 2021, Fauci fully flipped, saying in an interview on CNBC that “When you talk about different interventions, one of which would be vaccination for travel—I have said and I’ll say it again to you for clarity—that that is something that is on the table that we consider.”
Then, in January of 2022, Fauci went as far as to express dismay that the federal government wasn’t able to implement a vaccine mandate. “It’s unfortunate that an attempt to promote a public health measure [the OSHA mandates] has been met with such resistance,” Fauci told Katie Couric in a January 14 interview. “it’s understood in the context of taking people’s liberties away from them when we’re really dealing with a public health crisis.“
5. FLIP-FLOPPING ON HERD IMMUNITY
Fauci’s take on the herd immunity threshold number was always cloudy. And, admittedly by Fauci himself, a figure the NIAID head generated based on polling.
On June 29, 2020 Fauci said that it was “unlikely” that a vaccine with an efficacy of around 70-75% injected into 70-75% of the population would get America to herd immunity.
By December 10, 2020, Fauci went from “unlikely” to “hopeful” that 75% of people vaccinated would get America to herd immunity. “If 75-or-more percent of the population decides they want to get vaccinated, I would hope…we will have that veil of protective herd immunity that would…really essentially protect all the vulnerables,” Fauci said in an interview with Chris Cuomo.
Then, later in December, 2020, Fauci—in a direct admission of lying—said that “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75%…Then, when newer surveys said 60% or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85..“
Finally, in late 2021 and early 2022, Fauci gave up on projecting a herd immunity percentage with any clarity or precision. “As I’ve said so many times, herd immunity is really a complicated issue,” Fauci said in a Forbes video. “We do not know what that number is right now.“ Fauci doubled down on that uncertainty in January 18, 2022, saying in a World Economic Forum podcast that it “[T]hat is going to be a very difficult calculation…when you talk about herd immunity…“
6. EGOMANIACAL INSTYLE MAGAZINE SHOOT
Although Fauci said nothing uniquely contradictory in his July, 2020 interview with InStyle, the entire interview, taken alongside Fauci’s supposed recommendations, is one huge contradiction. At the height of what he would later refer to “a historic pandemic the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 100 years,” Fauci had at least two people from InStyle come out to his home to photograph and interview him. (Norah O’Donnell, the interviewer, and Frankie Alduino, the photographer.)
Not only did Fauci unequivocally violate his own public health decrees—and pose, mask off, sunglasses on, looking “cool” by his pool—the NIAID director also said that he thought everybody thought he was doing an “astounding job” at the time. On April 11, 2020, the CDC reported that U.S. all-cause mortality was nearly 40% above normal levels. On April 15, 2020, the day the InStyle magazine profile was published, the U.S. reported 2,718 coronavirus deaths.
7. LYING ABOUT CONSENSUS ON LAB ORIGINS
In obvious and unequivocal disregard for the information he received early on, Fauci promoted natural origins as the most likely source of the disease. Indeed, he has remained utterly mum regarding the evidence of lab origins brought forth to him in a now infamous (not recorded) February 1, 2020 conference call with Wellcome Trust director, Jeremey Farrar, Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Kristian Andersen, and other prominent scientists in the field of virology. There is an email trail, however, which shows a scientific consensus leaning toward a lab origin for SARS-CoV-2:
“The unusual features of the virus make up a really small part of the genome (<0.1%) so one has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered,” Andersen wrote to Fauci on January 31, 2020.
“[A] likely explanation [for the origin of SARS-CoV-2] could be something as simple as passage SARS-live CoVs in tissue culture on human cell lines (under BSL-2) for an extended period of time, accidentally creating a virus that would be primed for rapid transmission between humans via gain of furin site (from tissue culture) and adaption to human ACE2 receptor via repeated passage.“ – Mike Farzan, also a Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps, said in an email to Fauci, et al. on February 2.
“I really can’t think of a plausible natural scenario where you get from the bat virus or one very similar to it to nCoV where you insert exactly 4 amino acids 12 nucleotide that all have to be added at the exact same time to gain this function,” – Bob Garry, a virologist and researcher at Tulane University’s School of Medicine, added in the email chain with Fauci, Farzan, et al.
Virologist and evolutionary biologist Eddie Holmes, a National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow and professor at the University of Sydney, apparently also told Farrar that he was “60-40” in favor of a lab origin. Farrar himself reported Holmes’ odds in the February 2, 2020 email exchange and said he himself was “50-50.”
Following the conference call, and then email chain with Farrar, Garry, Farzan, et al., Fauci sent an email response on February 4, 2020 to Farrar and Francis Collins, the director of the NIH at the time, saying only: “?? …Serial passage in ACE2-transgenic mice” which Comer, Jordan et al. say was a “Reaction to First Draft of [a study to be published in] Nature Medicine “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.”
That study, authored by Andersen, Andrew Rambaut, W. Ian Lipkin, Edward C. Holmes, and Robert F. Garry (Bob Garry), was published in Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020. It made almost no mention of the points in favor of a lab origin from the email chain. Indeed, it argued the exact opposite interpretation of available data, summarizing that the authors’ “analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.“
In a National Geographic article published on May 4, 2020, Fauci doubled down on this idea, noting emphatically that “[The scientific evidence] is very, very strongly leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated … Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that [this virus] evolved in nature and then jumped species.”
Fauci received multiple emails from Collins encouraging the NIAID director to suppress the idea of a lab origin for COVID-19. “Wondering if there is something NIH can do to help put down this very destructive conspiracy… “ Collins wrote to Fauci on April 16, 2020. “I hoped the Nature Medicine article on the genomic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 would settle this. …Anything more we can do?“ Fauci responded by saying that: “I would not do anything about this right now. It [the lab-leak theory] is a shiny object that will go away in times [sic],”
A year later, however, and Fauci had flip-flopped. On May 21, 2021 Politifact’s Katie Sanders asked Fauci: “[A]re you still confident that it developed naturally?“ Fauci responded: “No, actually. …And that’s why I’ve said I’m perfectly in favor of any investigation that looks into the origin of the virus.” By June 3, 2021, however, Fauci had flip-flopped back to emphasizing the natural origins hypothesis, while paying lip service to a lab origin: “I still believe that the most likely origin is from an animal species to a human.…it could’ve been a lab leak.”
8. FLIP-FLOPPING ON VACCINE EFFICACY
Despite the fact that Fauci touted the COVID-19 “vaccines” as providing “95% [protection for] you against clinically recognizable disease, and almost 100% in protecting you from severe disease,” on December 10, 2020 in an interview with Chris Cuomo, Fauci has “evolved” on this topic to the point where he now (as of February 2022) recommends that immunocompromised people get a fourth shot.
Fauci has also continuously retained that there is always the potential for so-called “breakthrough infections.” Even teeing up the idea early on in the vaccines’ launch when he said on March 26, 2021 “we know, that at this point in time, it is unclear whether when you get vaccinated and you might be protected from clinical disease—which is the primary endpoint of the vaccine studies—that you can conceivably be infected, have virus in your nasal pharynx and at that same time have no symptoms.”
By July 27, 2021, Fauci was certain that “[V]accinated people who get breakthrough infections can actually transmit their virus to others.”
In an interview on August 8, 2021 with Meet The Press, Fauci said “There’s no doubt that over time, you’re going to have an attenuation of protection.” He added that “everyone assumes, and I think correctly, that sooner or later you’re going to see an attenuation to the point where we’re going to have to give an additional boost to people.”
By January, 2022, Fauci was on to speculating about the same “attenuation” of efficacy of the booster shots. “We do not know yet fully what the durability of the third booster shot of an mRNA and the second shot of a J&J are…” Fauci told Katie Couric on January 14, 2022. “[W]here [the virus is] breaking through and people are getting ill despite that boost, then very likely there will be a recommendation for another shot.”
As of February, 2022 Fauci says that “More than six months after the second dose, [protection] wanes with Omicron to 57[%].“
9. PROMOTING THE LIE OF ‘ASYMPTOMATIC TRANSMISSION’
Like his stances on masking, vaccine mandates, and natural immunity, Fauci’s initial thoughts on asymptomatic transmission were completely in tune with reality.
“Even if there is some asymptotic transmission, in all the history of respiratory-borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks,” Fauci said at an HHS conference on January, 28, 2020. More completely, he said that: “[O]ne thing historically people need to realize is that even if there is some asymptomatic transmission, in all the history of respiratory-borne viruses of any type, asymptomatic transmission has never been the driver of outbreaks. The driver of outbreaks is always a symptomatic person. Even if there is a rare asymptomatic person that might transmit, an epidemic is not driven by asymptomatic carriers.”
By April 23, 2020, however, Fauci had flip-flopped. “The thinking now is really being influenced by information that’s coming in. And the information is that more and more accumulation of data indicate that people who are without symptoms at all can transmit the virus,” Fauci said in an interview with PBS NewsHour. “But importantly, they can do it merely by speaking.”
On July 16, 2020, incredibly, Fauci said, in so many words, that he had no idea what the level of asymptomatic transmission was amongst the population. Richard of TWiV asked Fauci: “What’s your current perspective on the fraction of transmission now that’s either asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic versus symptomatic?” Fauci responded: ”You know [laughs], I know you were going to ask that. I like these questions, because there’s no right or wrong answer because we don’t know. But we can guess, as long as we don’t take our guesses too seriously.”
As of this writing, Fauci has not changed his position to reflect the largest studies done on the matter, which overwhelmingly show that asymptomatic transmission is vanishingly rare at best. On June 3, 2021 in an interview with CNN Fauci said that “if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside the hospital setting actually do work…Of course people would’ve [masked] that’s so obvious.”
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