Last month, Kamala Harris told the Los Angeles Times that the Biden administration was blindsided by COVID variants delta and omicron. “We didn’t see delta coming. I think most scientists did not — upon whose advice and direction we have relied — didn’t see delta coming,” she said. “We didn’t see omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this, this awful virus has been, which, as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”
The White House then scrambled to backtrack and sent Dr. Anthony Fauci to the rescue. “We did. We definitely saw variants coming,” Fauci insisted. But back in May of 2021, Dr. Fauci appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press with Chuck Todd, where he made quite the bold prediction that now casts doubt on his more recent claim.
“Well, the fact that we have vaccines right now, Chuck, is really a game changer,” Fauci said. “I mean, if we get, which we will, to the goals that the president has established, namely, if we get 70% of the people vaccinated by the Fourth of July, namely one single dose, and even more thereafter, you may see blips. But if we handle them well, it is unlikely that you’ll see the kind of surge that we saw in the late fall and the early winter.”
So what happened? We had a surge in the fall … and then the winter.
DR. FAUCI, MAY 2021: "It is unlikely" the U.S. will see COVID surge "in the late fall and the early winter." pic.twitter.com/MQjR8eeqmt
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) January 2, 2022
While we’re not at 70% fully vaccinated, between the 60+% who have been vaccinated, plus those who have had COVID and fully recovered (thus obtaining natural immunity), we’re well past 70% with some form of immunity.
Related: Fauci Stands to Rake in the Biggest Federal Retirement in History
Yet, Dr. Fauci was so wrong, so very wrong. Why? Simple: despite his claim to the contrary, either he, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, didn’t anticipate the COVID variants, or he didn’t anticipate the reduced efficaciousness of the vaccines against new COVID variants.
Dr. Fauci has been the man behind our nation’s COVID response from day one, and he repeatedly gives us reasons not to trust him or his judgment. I think it’s about time Fauci steps aside. He’s failed us.
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