First of all, let me say I'm Fauci's biggest fan. I'm really old, and was 23 when the AIDS pandemic was discovered (in 1981) and followed the pandemic for 15 years, until finally we found drugs that could actually turn AIDS into a manageable disease rather than the killer it was. I lost my best friend to AIDS in 1992, as well two other work associates.
Through it all, Fauci was a hero in the pandemic. He garnered the respect of the gay community, after initially being attacked as a government official. Sound familiar? (This is all profiled in "And The Band Played On" from Randy Shilts)
I have pretty much agreed with Fauci on 95% of his proclamations during the Coronavirus pandemic. He fucked up once with whether one should wear masks when the pandemic first exploded in March 2020 (I know he did it because there was a shortage at the time for health workers, but it is still a fuck-up), and I do believe he has fucked up again with this pronouncement. Yeah he tried to mitigate it, but it's always the first line that makes the headline. We had 57,000 cases on Monday, and 57,000 cases on Tuesday, and these are most certainly undercounts, given how many people are testing at home and not reporting positive results. And hospitalizations are on the rise. I just don't understand this statement by Fauci, and Dr. Jonathan Reiner on CNN this morning expressed similar sentiments. We are most certainly still in the grips of this pandemic.
The way I LOOK AT IT is ironic that TRUMP NEVER SEEMS TO CATCH HELL FOR HIS COMMENTS about Biden at the debate or for being a total idiot regarding science-in-general (windmills, nuking hurricanes, antiseptics, light, pandemic ending by Easter) and more, but FAUCI caught hell for saying we don't need to wear masks.
I can see how AT FIRST, we were uncertain about transmissibility and we had to learn how the virus behaves and acts first---so, I am not really tripping.
I am more afraid of the lunatics screaming about "MASK MANDATES AND NAZI GERMANY!!!!!" with their faces turning purple and veins bulging like that idiot hippy at the town hall meeting.
I am more grossed-out by those apes, than by Fauci's preliminary mistakes.
What I'd like to know is why the leading manufacturers did not sign contracts with the leading pharmacies to at least carry some of the N95 or even the KN95, which would have alleviated some of the infections during the last surge?
Are we that weak minded that we only give them to medical workers and first responders, not thinking that ordinary people would want them? I've been asked repeatedly why we don't carry them, instead of the cheap Chinese face masks. I personally went from a cloth mask to surgical mask to my own supply of KN95s that I have to order to even get any.
There's no fucking excuse for this, especially since during the last 6 months we gave away the stockpile supplies of N95's from the government stockpile.
It's fucking inexcusable.
Mask guidance has been horrible. Fauci was all over the map. Thousands have died or gotten seriously ill thinking they were safe with dollar store ”surgical” masks and cheap cotton ones (or expensive designer ones) when there should have been an all-out push to manufacture, distribute and encourage the use of, if not mandate the use of, N-95s. Plus there should have been a Manhattan Project to develop even better masks (I own some N-100s). Is Fauci 100% to blame for that? Perhaps not. But he is not infallible and he is not worthy of deification (nor is he one of the”sexiest men in America”).
I think Fauci is correct. We here in US have entered a transition phase in this pandemic. Two separate interviews I have read about Fauci’s comments both indicate he does not think we are out of the pandemic completely but are transitioning toward an endemic phase. He also indicated that, as with everything else covid, there remains much uncertainty because the world is definitely not in the same place the US is currently.
This is a reality—serum surveillance indicates that upwards of 2/3s of all Americans have been infected and a national vax rate of 54-56% coupled with the prior infection rate has bestowed some measure of population level immunity. This immunity is not sterilizing immunity (prevent infections with Omicron variants) but life-saving immunity (prevent serious illness and/or death) among those with persistent prior-infection immunity but more so with vaccinated with or without a prior or subsequent infection.
The above facts present an interesting reality—anti-vaxxers can say, “see, natural immunity helped us get to ”herd immunity” without those dangerous vaccines“ and they are factually correct. However, as many pointed out when the dipshits released their Great Barrington Declaration, the cost of attaining ”herd immunity” by the “let er rip and let doG sort em out” was extremely steep in its human toll.
Pro-vaccinators can now point out that, see, your policy of let er rip was unnecessarily painful and extremely damaging—in terms of needlessly wasted or injured human lives, economic terms, and in holding society together through our societal compacts of doing what is best for the vast majority. Unfortunately too many (even among the non-antivaxxer folks) will recognize the benefit of this painfully acquired population level immunity without acknowledging the truly painful and unnecessary costs.
I think Fauci is correct in that we are in a transitioning phase here in US and the challenge now is recognizing this and somehow coming to terms with the absolute demonstrated reality that a significant portion of our population will actively work against the common good if the effort to do so even slightly inconveniences them.This is a difficult reality to acknowledge. Yet, somehow, we do need to acknowledge this and worse yet, try to figure out how to move forward as communities knowing this is the reality. I struggle with this daily as I would prefer not to do business with nor associate with people who are actively demonstrating they couldn’t give a damn about the well-being of those around them because of their political or religious or propagandized beliefs. It is a challenge and I wonder how others are approaching or dealing with this transition.
Also big fan of Fauci. Lost friends to AIDS. Maybe if he used the phrase "moving to the next stage of the pandemic" but nothing he says will matter to the AV and Nut Stream Media like Fox.
Relying on the raw numbers is the #1 way to lie with statistics. Fauci is looking at the rates over time and their interrelationships. He is also saying that we are in a transitional phase in this country, moving out of the pandemic. He acknowledged to PBS that it continues to be a full-blown pandemic in other parts of the world.
Ron, I suppose he has to take sociological facts into account, as well as clinical facts.
I agree, it's stupid to abandon masks at this point, but the covidiots have "won". If the message hasn't got through to them by now, it never will.
I hope the instances of violence against sensible mask-wearers are stamped on, hard. Freedumb, indeed!
Can't look at case numbers anymore because there aren't many naive people left. To a vaxxed population, covid is not what it is to a naive population.
Covid is never going away. There will never be really low case numbers. It mutates too fast and spreads too fast. We are in for twice yearly vaccines (which will hopefully be updated for the next one), and an endless game of whack-a-mole with anti-virals and variants.
It isn't 2020 anymore, and it'll never be 2019 again. It has to be considered endemic at some point, and between vaccines and treatments, we are just about there. Just missing vaccines for the little ones.
I'm actually not a fan of Fauci as a messenger, but he actually did the right thing here.