OPINION:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the chief medical adviser to President Biden, told a national audience via ABC News that there was no definite number of coronavirus cases, coronavirus hospitalizations, coronavirus deaths or coronavirus recoveries that could serve to mark an end to the pandemic.
Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, to see bureaucratic science at work!
In this corner stands science, fact and sound reasoning; in the other, commander-in-coronavirus chief Fauci — and never the two shall meet.
When asked by host Linsey Davis about the “threshold” of COVID cases-per-day that would mean “OK, the pandemic has passed,” Fauci — Dohktah Fauci, the guy who’s supposed to be the expert on such matters — said: “[T]here’s no magic number.”
In fact, there’s no number at all, magic or otherwise.
“We don’t know what that number is yet,” he added.
Why not?
Or better yet, how about those flattened curves?
‘Cause once upon a time, way, way back, in the beginning of the coronavirus, in a galaxy far, far away, the pandemic shutdowns and pandemic panic was supposed to end when the curves were flattened. That’s what Fauci said. That’s what Fauci told us.
“If you look at the curves of outbreaks, they go big peaks and then come down,” he said in March of 2020. “What we need to do is flatten that down.”
Of course, flattening the curve is about as scientific a standard as his other advisements about wearing multiple face masks — that it’s “common sense that it likely would be more effective,” as he said on NBC’s “Today” show in January 2021.
Another way to say that: It’s common sense that wearing full military-style Mission Oriented Protective Posture, or MOPP, gear, and dressing head to toe to ward off chemical and biological — like a virus! — infiltration of the human system is, as Fauci would say, “likely” “more effective” than not.
More Fauci common sense?
In July 2020, he was the guy who also warned us all: “[I]f you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it.”
It was common sense.
“Theoretically, you should protect all the mucosal surfaces,” he said back then. “If you have goggles or an eye shield, you should use it. It’s not universally recommended, but if you really want to be complete, you should probably use it if you can.”
Theoretically.
Likely.
Probably.
And now, his latest: Numbers? What numbers?
“You know, there’s no magic number,” he said on ABC News. “But you want to make sure the trajectory keeps going down and down and down.”
And — ostensibly — down.
At least Fauci is consistent with his unscientific science.
But like a military operation without an exit strategy, Fauci’s style of science is largely adrift at sea.
He would leave all of America at his beck and call, tiptoeing around his medical advisements, nail-biting at the next coming clampdown on freedom — if he could. It’s time to demand the exit number, pure and simple. Without, science has become as big a laughing stock as Fauci.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Socialists Don’t Sleep: Christians Must Rise Or America Will Fall,” is available by clicking HERE.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
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