And by the way, not for nothing, but while I'm a HUGE fan of Fauci, and respect him immensely, this is not helping his - or the general - cause. DO NOT claim "facts!" and "science!" then tailor your message to the narrative. This undermines confidence and does NOTHING to convince those that are skeptical that what you say is objective truth.
My response here is not meant to defend Fauci. I too respect the man, especially when his career in total is taken into account. But I think anyone who had been in the position he was in during this pandemic would've fallen into the same traps. The problem isn't just about "facts!" and "science!" here. Covid-19 as a virus is simply unlike any other virus we've had to deal with. So "facts!" and "science!" are more difficult to gage because typical knowns are not knowns here. It doesn't surprise me at all that herd immunity in this instance isn't going to look like herd immunity in measles or pertussis. Kids, for example, just don't show as high of infection and mortality rates. This is highly unusual. And these factors around herd immunity are bound shift as vaccines are rolled out at different paces throughout the world and as differing variants come into play.
Fauci has undoubtedly been under enormous pressure. Every word he utters is going to be parsed and scrutinized as though he were writing the 10 commandments. And as much as doctors like to play god, he isn't one. I myself have been highly critical of the way public health messaging has been put out there over the past 18 months. What I'm seeing now seems to be an actual coming around to the "science" and "facts" and being driven less by political pressures. And that's a good thing. There is still plenty of time to fuck it up though.
FTR, this article from December you've linked by Dr. Vinay Prasad is one that I've read before. I love Prasad's podcast, Plenary Sessions. Prasad is one of the physicians who convinced me to look at issues like masks and school closures in a very different way and I respect him almost as much as I do Dr. Monica Gandhi. However, yesterday on Twitter he posted a series of Tweets attacking a fellow physician who challenged him on various Covid topics over the past few months. Prasad has been a vocal critic of Twitter wars and has long eschewed that platform as trash, many times threatening to quit himself, and being very critical of fellow doctor's who post there for "likes" and attention. So I found his exchanges on that platform very troubling in light of what he has said before. Perhaps his beef with the guy was legit, I don't know. I didn't follow much of it. But in one fell swoop everything I thought I knew about the guy shifted once I saw his behavior on Twitter. Very sad to see this kind of behavior I would expect from high schoolers come from physicians, TBH.
Topic: Coronavirus (Read 443098 times)
