Anthony Fauci: Dr No

ONCE UPON A time, Dr Anthony Fauci was the man putting the medical stamp on whether Americans could go outside their homes. Or whether the Co­vid virus came from a laboratory or from another animal. On July 29, he sat in a US Senate Committee hearing and over 100 times refused to answer questions. He made an opening statement about being unfairly targeted and then stoically remained with lips sealed except to quote a line about his right to not speak.

Fauci was the driver of the policy in the US on how to negotiate a pandemic, and when the world was in lockdown that meant enormous power even if under the aegis of medi­cal necessity. In many ways, it was a thankless job because every inconvenience and error came to his door. His actions only added to the perception. He is alleged to have sidelined scientists not following his policy. He dismissed the lab leak theory, which now has become mainstream. And, in a country obsessed with personal freedom to the point of guns being a fundamental right, forcing people indoors and into masks was going to get pushback.

Even though it was US President Donald Trump who made him the face of America’s Covid response, he posted online this week that Fauci’s “ideas were crazy”. Former President Joe Biden, while he left office, gave him a pre-emptive pardon but that doesn’t cover the future. The fall of Fauci continues to be an ongoing chapter. Many in the ruling Republican Party want retribution from him for the suffer­ing of Americans during the pandemic. And that, like some of what Fauci recommended, is also an extreme.