Former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci was defiant about his legacy in an interview published Monday by The New York Times (NYT).
NYT writer David Wallace-Wells conducted multiple calls with Fauci over several hours, in which Fauci addressed America’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and his role as the national avatar for the public health establishment. The two spoke about America’s mass vaccination effort when Wallace-Wells asked Fauci about his critics on the left and right. (RELATED: ‘Weaponized Against Me’: Fauci Tries To Defend Inconsistent Record On ‘Herd Immunity’)
Why can’t a reporter ask him:
Why did you run ZERO randomized trials of masking or any NPI?
You controlled the NIAID budget.Why did you campaign AGAINST DeSantis school reopening? https://t.co/CUfmLfvZ4p
— Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) April 25, 2023
“This is an oversimplification, but on the right, you could say the main thrust of criticism was that the public response was too heavy-handed. On the left, it has been that it was too hands-off. That in the Biden era, guidance about masking and testing and quarantining were driven less by public-health concerns than by what was seen by the White House as economic, political and social realities — that people wanted to move on, however many people were dying,” Wallace-Wells asked.
“Certainly there could have been a better understanding of why people were emphasizing the economy. But when people say, ‘Fauci shut down the economy’ — it wasn’t Fauci,” Fauci said as part of a lengthy response.
“The C.D.C. was the organization that made those recommendations. I happened to be perceived as the personification of the recommendations. But show me a school that I shut down and show me a factory that I shut down. Never. I never did. I gave a public-health recommendation that echoed the C.D.C.’s recommendation, and people made a decision based on that. But I never criticized the people who had to make the decisions one way or the other,” Fauci continued.
Fauci’s opponents emphasized his public support for mask mandates, extended school closures, lockdowns, vaccine mandates and the natural origin theory of the coronavirus.
He criticized Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan to keep schools open at an April 2020 White House briefing. In January 2021, Fauci said Biden’s plan to have schools reopened within the first 100 days of his presidency “may not happen” because of mitigating circumstances.” A year later, Fauci said schools should reopen because of high teacher vaccination rates and negative educational outcomes caused by remote learning.
Fauci stated during an October 2022 interview he had “nothing to do with” school closures and admitted they had “deleterious collateral consequences.”
He stepped down as Biden’s chief medical adviser and NAID Director in December after 38 years leading the NAID beginning in the Reagan administration.