All through the COVID pandemic, I regarded Dr. Fauci as the voice of reason who was saving millions of lives. Nowadays, he is hated and receives death threats. What happened?
The case against Fauci usually boils down to an accusation that Fauci denied or covered up a theory that the COVID-19 virus was invented in a lab in Wuhan, China, and released to kill millions of people. That accusation holds no water.
First, Fauci always kept all theories open, even though he favored the theory that the virus mutated from some unknown animal that was sold in the Wuhan market. This is the prevalent theory today. He never actually denied the lab theory.
Evidence points to Wuhan market as source of covid-19 outbreak– NewScientist.com
Fauci’s critics often use the term ‘gain of function’ to describe how the virus was hopped up in the Wuhan lab (with US funding) to ‘gain’ the function of harming humans.
An informative article in ScienceInsights.com explains:
One point of broad agreement: almost all U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that the virus was not genetically engineered, and all agreed it was not developed as a biological weapon. What Was the Cause of COVID-19? Origins and Theories – ScienceInsights
…the research did not involve the regulatory and operative definition of “gain of function” — the practice of enhancing a virus in a lab to study its potential impact in the real world. Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the committee, said some Republicans were using a broader definition of the term, one that would also include the manufacture of flu vaccines.
The argument that the virus was created in the lab reminds me of Christian Creationists, whose argument is that the world couldn’t have created itself, but had to be created by a god. Similarly, the market theory of COVID is that the virus basically created itself, which is impossible, so it must have been created with a purpose. (I suspect that the Christian Creationists are precisely the fiercest enemies of Fauci.)
The Republicans on the committee appear to have willfully misunderstood the facts in the case. Rather, they simply wanted to stage a theater event to vilify Fauci for no particular reason that they could articulate. I believe that the Wuhan lab theory was not the main thing on their minds.
From the beginning of the COVID pandemic, time and time again, Trump (who of course is never wrong) played down its importance. He said it would go away, that it was no big deal, and was no more dangerous than the common flu. All this, while thousands of people were dying.
Fauci dared to contradict Trump by saying, “Hey, people, wake up! COVID is really dangerous and you’ve got to do something about it.” He galvanized public opinion around the need for masks, spacing, and most importantly, vaccination. This was already happening around the world; the US was only late to the game.
COVID deaths continued to rise. This made the infallible Trump look like a fool, as Fauci was right and Trump was wrong. This humiliation was increased when Trump made outlandish claims for treatments, such as shining a light up your butt, swallowing bleach, or taking a magic hydroxychloroquine pill. Fauci pointed out the absurdity of these claims, thereby infuriating Trump and his MAGA supporters.
Trump supporters had to stand by their hero, so they started claiming that the rising death toll was due to Fauci’s methods, especially vaccination. The vaccines, they claimed, were actually CAUSING the deaths. In this view, Fauci was the cause of the pandemic. Trump was right all along – COVID was not a big deal until Fauci came along.
Therefore, the theater recently produced in Congress was essentially a pro-Trump rally – a two-minute hate against Trump’s perceived enemy. The play-actors were hoping to trap Fauci into saying something that could be used against him, as perjury. He refused to play their game, and they were furious, calling for him to be held in contempt of Congress. They may follow through on their threat in order to please their master.