5 ms·

>> Or maybe he was as arrogant as he seemed and believed he knew better than everyone else. Do you have any references for this? Our understanding of Covid ev

by arunabha 11mo ago

>> Or maybe he was as arrogant as he seemed and believed he knew better than everyone else. Do you have any references for this? Our understanding of Covid evolved pretty rapidly during the pandemic and as usual hindsight is 20/20. I have no doubt that *you* are convinced of your statement. I'd just like to understand what data you based your conviction on.

mhb 11mo ago
"So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning? 'Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected.'"[1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250501225159/https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus https://web.archive.org/web/20250501225159/https://www.thest...
- epgui 11mo ago
  And?
  - mhb 11mo ago
    Really? Fauci understood that masks were effective for health care workers. Instead of saying we want to reserve them for health care workers, he downplayed their effectiveness to achieve the goal of reserving them for health care workers. That destroys trust.
    - Arainach 11mo ago
      This is the same society that was already hoarding *toilet paper*. There is a very strong streak of selfishness in American culture, so telling people "here's all the information, now be nice and don't ruin things for everyone" means that 100% of the time someone will ruin things for everyone to try to make a buck.
      - mhb 11mo ago
        Fine. That's how he justified his actions. And maybe that produces a good short term result. The result is you lose trust and people don't believe you the next time you need them to.
        epgui 11mo ago
        You continue to willfully interpret these words as if they reflect malice or deception, even after receiving a very simple explanation. You’re doing it on purpose at this point.
        ryandrake 11mo ago
        What would you have said, in the CDC's position, with a country full of scared people who want to survive and do what's best for the community, but also with a sizable number of selfish, greedy assholes, hoarding groceries to make a buck off their neighbor, and coughing on people for the lulz, who were unfortunately capable of ruining it for everyone? You're Fauci, trying to convince assholes to do the right thing. Go:
        alamortsubite 11mo ago
        Early in the pandemic, my girlfriend paid hundreds of dollars for a respirator to use in an emergency at her job at the hospital. It was a basic Honeywell respirator, but one of the few the hospital could approve for her to use. The same respirator costs ~$40 on Amazon today. I'm an airline brat and have flown millions of miles and been in two emergency landings involving fires. If you're ever in a similar situation, you and everybody around you better hope the crew sticks to protocol rather than worrying about bruising your precious long-term trust.
        mhb 11mo ago
        What's your point? The airline stuck to a protocol that was worked out in advance and effective. The CDC apparently had no protocol or one that Fauci threw out the window because he thought he knew better. Now when we're in a similar situation, we have a problem.
    - epgui 11mo ago
      You’re reading malice or deception where there is none, and are being very selective in your context window. You want to allocate resources to where they will have the biggest impact, and you want to ensure you don’t run out of resources for the most critical uses. They were transparent about this from the beginning.
      - epistasis 11mo ago
        I'm surprised that your simlple "And?" comment, requesting explanation, got such a downvoting. We can't even try to seek understanding of each others' opinions in this discussion, apparently.
        mhb 11mo ago
        Maybe you're new to these discussions but replying with "And?" is not evidence of an earnest and dispassionate desire to communally discover a foundational truth. See also "Just asking questions."
        epgui 11mo ago
        See also “begging the question”.
      - mhb 11mo ago
        I'm reading deception (not malice) because he said he was being deceptive. He was not transparent at all. He chose to allocate resources for the contemporaneous crisis at the expense of the trust needed to manage future crises. Maybe you objectively think that was the correct choice, but it's revisionist to claim that that wasn't the choice he made.
        epgui 11mo ago
        Where does he say he was being deceptive? I reject both your premise and your interpretation: you either don’t remember well or didn’t understand anything.
      - 11mo ago
  - throwawa14223 11mo ago
    And we had people believing he was telling the truth long after he changed course. His lie cost us all.
    - epgui 11mo ago
      Where is the lie?
CWuestefeld 11mo ago
It's pretty clear objectively that Fauci did a lot of lying and misleading. 1. Fauci admitted on TV that he'd been misleading the public about herd immunity numbers. He said he'd painted a rosier picture than reality in order to avoid making the world fear that we could never overcome the pandemic. -- https://thenationaltelegraph.com/opinion/dr-fauci-admits-to-lying-about-herd-immunity/ https://thenationaltelegraph.com/opinion/dr-fauci-admits-to-... 2. Fauci admitted in Congressional hearing that the 6-foot social distancing rule was made up, with no experimental evidence. -- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/03/anthony-fauci-house-hearing-covid-response/73955411007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/03/anthon... 3. Slightly more controversially, Fauci misled us by dissembling under questioning by Sen. Paul. By a strict technocratic definition that nobody he was talking to was privy to, he told the truth when he steadfastly maintained that there had been no GoF research. But by the plain meaning of the words, he was clearly lying. -- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/fauci-says-rand-paul-egregiously-incorrect-about-gain-of-function-research.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/fauci-says-rand-paul-egregio... I'm not sure these citations are the best, I don't have time to read through all of it, but hopefully it's illustrative.
- epistasis 11mo ago
  Reading your links, I see lots of emotion and twisting of statements, and not much honest searching for the truth. I see a need to mock and ostracize and to try to twist others' statements and words. Do you not see that too? If there are better links to support your incendiary phrasing of points, it may help get the point across better. But I'm not sure you can find something that's not trying to misrepresent and sensationalize the issue.
  - CWuestefeld 11mo ago
    It seems pretty clear to me. For #1, about herd immunity numbers, consider the below. I don't see any space for interpretation here: Fauci flat-out admitted to changing what he told the public in order to manipulate their (our!) behavior: In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.” In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks. [...]Dr. Fauci said that weeks ago, he had hesitated to publicly raise his estimate because many Americans seemed hesitant about vaccines, which they would need to accept almost universally in order for the country to achieve herd immunity. “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.” “We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.” -- https://archive.is/20210305032312/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covid-coronavirus.html https://archive.is/20210305032312/https://www.nytimes.com/20... Regarding #2, this is also pretty clear. Here's another citation, which also seems pretty clear. The 6ft social distancing guidance enforced in the US during the Covid pandemic “sort of just appeared”, Dr Anthony Fauci, the former White House medical adviser, has admitted. It was “likely not based on data”, Dr Fauci conceded in a behind-closed-doors session of the House select subcommittee on the Coronavirus pandemic. -- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/12/anthony-fauci-covid-6ft-distancing-not-backed-data-usa/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/12/anthony-fa... For #3, I acknowledged from the start that this is more subjective. If we judge solely by academic jargon, then Fauci was telling the truth. The thing is, it's not reasonable to judge solely by that academic jargon when Fauci wasn't talking to fellow members of the academy. He was being questioned by Congress, and one expects an intelligent guy like him to be able to communicate effectively. When speaking to politicians and ultimately to the public, he should be aware of the language he uses. EDIT: Sorry to jump back into the same post. But I want to emphasize that the root question we're arguing about here is loss of trust. We don't need a mathematically airtight proof that Fauci was lying. I just need to demonstrate that the institution, and Fauci specifically, said things that for reasonable listeners could be construed in ways that destroyed trust. I think what I've illustrated clears that threshold easily.

mhb 11mo ago

"So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning? 'Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected.'"[1] [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250501225159/https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus https://web.archive.org/web/20250501225159/https://www.thest...

epgui 11mo ago
And?
- mhb 11mo ago
  Really? Fauci understood that masks were effective for health care workers. Instead of saying we want to reserve them for health care workers, he downplayed their effectiveness to achieve the goal of reserving them for health care workers. That destroys trust.
  - Arainach 11mo ago
    This is the same society that was already hoarding *toilet paper*. There is a very strong streak of selfishness in American culture, so telling people "here's all the information, now be nice and don't ruin things for everyone" means that 100% of the time someone will ruin things for everyone to try to make a buck.
    - mhb 11mo ago
      Fine. That's how he justified his actions. And maybe that produces a good short term result. The result is you lose trust and people don't believe you the next time you need them to.
      - epgui 11mo ago
        You continue to willfully interpret these words as if they reflect malice or deception, even after receiving a very simple explanation. You’re doing it on purpose at this point.
      - ryandrake 11mo ago
        What would you have said, in the CDC's position, with a country full of scared people who want to survive and do what's best for the community, but also with a sizable number of selfish, greedy assholes, hoarding groceries to make a buck off their neighbor, and coughing on people for the lulz, who were unfortunately capable of ruining it for everyone? You're Fauci, trying to convince assholes to do the right thing. Go:
      - alamortsubite 11mo ago
        Early in the pandemic, my girlfriend paid hundreds of dollars for a respirator to use in an emergency at her job at the hospital. It was a basic Honeywell respirator, but one of the few the hospital could approve for her to use. The same respirator costs ~$40 on Amazon today. I'm an airline brat and have flown millions of miles and been in two emergency landings involving fires. If you're ever in a similar situation, you and everybody around you better hope the crew sticks to protocol rather than worrying about bruising your precious long-term trust.
        mhb 11mo ago
        What's your point? The airline stuck to a protocol that was worked out in advance and effective. The CDC apparently had no protocol or one that Fauci threw out the window because he thought he knew better. Now when we're in a similar situation, we have a problem.
  - epgui 11mo ago
    You’re reading malice or deception where there is none, and are being very selective in your context window. You want to allocate resources to where they will have the biggest impact, and you want to ensure you don’t run out of resources for the most critical uses. They were transparent about this from the beginning.
    - epistasis 11mo ago
      I'm surprised that your simlple "And?" comment, requesting explanation, got such a downvoting. We can't even try to seek understanding of each others' opinions in this discussion, apparently.
      - mhb 11mo ago
        Maybe you're new to these discussions but replying with "And?" is not evidence of an earnest and dispassionate desire to communally discover a foundational truth. See also "Just asking questions."
        epgui 11mo ago
        See also “begging the question”.
    - mhb 11mo ago
      I'm reading deception (not malice) because he said he was being deceptive. He was not transparent at all. He chose to allocate resources for the contemporaneous crisis at the expense of the trust needed to manage future crises. Maybe you objectively think that was the correct choice, but it's revisionist to claim that that wasn't the choice he made.
      - epgui 11mo ago
        Where does he say he was being deceptive? I reject both your premise and your interpretation: you either don’t remember well or didn’t understand anything.
    - 11mo ago
- throwawa14223 11mo ago
  And we had people believing he was telling the truth long after he changed course. His lie cost us all.
  - epgui 11mo ago
    Where is the lie?

CWuestefeld 11mo ago

It's pretty clear objectively that Fauci did a lot of lying and misleading. 1. Fauci admitted on TV that he'd been misleading the public about herd immunity numbers. He said he'd painted a rosier picture than reality in order to avoid making the world fear that we could never overcome the pandemic. -- https://thenationaltelegraph.com/opinion/dr-fauci-admits-to-lying-about-herd-immunity/ https://thenationaltelegraph.com/opinion/dr-fauci-admits-to-... 2. Fauci admitted in Congressional hearing that the 6-foot social distancing rule was made up, with no experimental evidence. -- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/03/anthony-fauci-house-hearing-covid-response/73955411007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/06/03/anthon... 3. Slightly more controversially, Fauci misled us by dissembling under questioning by Sen. Paul. By a strict technocratic definition that nobody he was talking to was privy to, he told the truth when he steadfastly maintained that there had been no GoF research. But by the plain meaning of the words, he was clearly lying. -- https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/fauci-says-rand-paul-egregiously-incorrect-about-gain-of-function-research.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/04/fauci-says-rand-paul-egregio... I'm not sure these citations are the best, I don't have time to read through all of it, but hopefully it's illustrative.

epistasis 11mo ago
Reading your links, I see lots of emotion and twisting of statements, and not much honest searching for the truth. I see a need to mock and ostracize and to try to twist others' statements and words. Do you not see that too? If there are better links to support your incendiary phrasing of points, it may help get the point across better. But I'm not sure you can find something that's not trying to misrepresent and sensationalize the issue.
- CWuestefeld 11mo ago
  It seems pretty clear to me. For #1, about herd immunity numbers, consider the below. I don't see any space for interpretation here: Fauci flat-out admitted to changing what he told the public in order to manipulate their (our!) behavior: In the pandemic’s early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About a month ago, he began saying “70, 75 percent” in television interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News, he said “75, 80, 85 percent” and “75 to 80-plus percent.” In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks. [...]Dr. Fauci said that weeks ago, he had hesitated to publicly raise his estimate because many Americans seemed hesitant about vaccines, which they would need to accept almost universally in order for the country to achieve herd immunity. “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.” “We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.” -- https://archive.is/20210305032312/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covid-coronavirus.html https://archive.is/20210305032312/https://www.nytimes.com/20... Regarding #2, this is also pretty clear. Here's another citation, which also seems pretty clear. The 6ft social distancing guidance enforced in the US during the Covid pandemic “sort of just appeared”, Dr Anthony Fauci, the former White House medical adviser, has admitted. It was “likely not based on data”, Dr Fauci conceded in a behind-closed-doors session of the House select subcommittee on the Coronavirus pandemic. -- https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/12/anthony-fauci-covid-6ft-distancing-not-backed-data-usa/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/01/12/anthony-fa... For #3, I acknowledged from the start that this is more subjective. If we judge solely by academic jargon, then Fauci was telling the truth. The thing is, it's not reasonable to judge solely by that academic jargon when Fauci wasn't talking to fellow members of the academy. He was being questioned by Congress, and one expects an intelligent guy like him to be able to communicate effectively. When speaking to politicians and ultimately to the public, he should be aware of the language he uses. EDIT: Sorry to jump back into the same post. But I want to emphasize that the root question we're arguing about here is loss of trust. We don't need a mathematically airtight proof that Fauci was lying. I just need to demonstrate that the institution, and Fauci specifically, said things that for reasonable listeners could be construed in ways that destroyed trust. I think what I've illustrated clears that threshold easily.