***The Iowa Standard is an independent media voice. We rely on the financial support of our readers to exist. Please consider a one-time sign of support or becoming a monthly supporter at $5, $10/month - whatever you think we're worth! If you’ve ever used the phrase “Fake News” — now YOU can actually DO something about it! You can also support us on PayPal at [email protected] or Venmo at Iowa-Standard-2018 or through the mail at: PO Box 112 Sioux Center, IA 51250

Dr. Tony Fauci had a rough time answering some simple questions about his recently released emails during an appearance on NewsNation.

The Wednesday night interview was conducted by the show’s fill-in host and former Fox News correspondent Leland Vittert.

Vittert asked Fauci if there was anything he wishes he would’ve said but did not at the time.

“The only trouble is they are really ripe to be taken out of context where someone can snip out a sentence in an email without showing the other emails, and say ‘based on an email from Dr. Fauci, he said such and such’ where you don’t really have the full context,” Fauci said.

One of the emails featured Fauci’s comment that the typical mask bought in a drug store is “not really effective in keeping out the virus.”

Fauci said it is a “complicated issue.”

“At the time we were saying it wasn’t necessary to be wearing masks there were three things that were going on,” he said. “One of them was there was a consideration that there was a shortage of personal protective equipment, particularly among people who actually needed the masks, those who had taken care of patients in the hospital.

“We didn’t want to have people running to the stores and getting N-95s or even any other masks. There wasn’t any indication that number two, that masks outside of the setting of the hospital actually worked to protect acquisition and prevent transmission. It ultimately showed that it did, but there were no data then.”

Vittert asked if Fauci wished there would’ve been fewer “extraordinarily clear edicts and directions” and more this is what we think.

Fauci told Vittert the way he wrote it could be misinterpreted.

“One of the issues that if you go into a drug store and get a typical mask and put it on, it generally doesn’t fit particularly well,” he said. “I should probably have been more explicit and said there are a number of aspects to it, including the poor fitting.”

Fauci was asked if America has any idea of what happened inside the Wuhan Lab.

“Well, again, let’s put things in context. The scientists in the Wuhan Lab for years and years among other credible trusted scientists in China — we’re not talking about the Communist Chinese Party, we’re not talking about the Chinese military. We’re talking about scientists that we’ve had relationships for years.”

Vittert asked if it occurred that the distinction between the CCP, the government and the Chinese military is a distinction without a difference.

“What I’m saying is that we have very many years of experience of productive interaction with Chinese scientists,” Fauci said.

Vittert said all of us can agree the Chinese lied about a number of things about the Coronavirus, which Fauci agreed with. He asked how we could be certain the money sent to the Wuhan Lab wasn’t used by the Chinese military.

Fauci admitted that much of what Americans were told about what the country knew about the Chinese was based simply on taking their word.

“Right,” Fauci said.

He said that, while he cannot guarantee everything that is happening inside the Wuhan Lab, “it is our obligation as scientists and public health individuals to study the animal-human interface because we had a very difficult experience that we lucked out, that we didn’t get hurt too badly, with the original SARS in 2002 and 2003. Which was clearly a jumping of species.”

“You don’t want to go to Hoboken, New Jersey or to Fairfax, Virginia to be studying the bat-human interface that might lead to an outbreak. So you got o China. And when you go to China you have to understand you have the terms of an award and you say this is what you can do with the $130,000, the $140,000 a year that we’re giving you. You get an annual progress report from the lab and when you look at what was done, there is nothing in there that indicates anything close to creating a virus that has great transmissibility and great pathogenicity in humans. That is what we have done with them.”

Fauci said conflating what the CCP will or will not do and what Wuhan will or will not do is “inappropriate.”

Vittert asked about President Joe Biden’s goal of 70 percent of Americans being vaccinated by July 4.

“I don’t think it’s over in the sense of it’s done, finished, but it is very, very much of a giant step towards the normality that we all want so very much,” he said. “Because if you get 70 percent of the adult population with at least one dose by the Fourth of July, you will have enough people that will either be fully or partially protected. Even though the virus is not going to disappear, it will diminish greatly as a public health threat.”

Fauci said he doesn’t believe we will ever be able to “eradicate” SARS/COV-2, but he hopes it will be eliminated or greatly controlled in America.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here