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anthony fauci
Biden Preemptively Pardons Members of January 6 Panel, Other Trump Targets
"Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances," said the outgoing president.
Jan 20, 2025
This is a developing news story... Please check back for possible updates...
In the final hours of his presidency, Joe Biden on Monday issued preemptive pardons to a number of current and former lawmakers and public officials whom President-elect Donald Trump has attacked.
Those pardoned include Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and members of the House select committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 insurrection incited by Trump, who has pledged to pursue retribution against his political opponents.
"The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense," Biden said in a statement. "Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country."
"These are exceptional circumstances, and I cannot in good conscience do nothing," the outgoing president continued. "Even when individuals have done nothing wrong—and in fact have done the right thing—and will ultimately be exonerated, the mere fact of being investigated or prosecuted can irreparably damage reputations and finances."
Biden has made sweeping use of his clemency powers in the final days of his White House term, commuting the sentences of thousands of people convicted for nonviolent drug offenses and almost completely emptying federal death row.
But Biden has not granted clemency to several high-profile individuals whose causes progressive lawmakers and human rights organizations have championed, including Charles Littlejohn—a former IRS contractor serving a five-year prison sentence for leaking the income tax records of thousands of rich Americans, Trump among them—and Steven Donziger, who faced an unprecedented legal assault led by Chevron after he helped secure a historic settlement against the company over oil dumped in the Amazon rainforest.
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What Might the US Owe the World for Covid-19?
A US-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most significant case of governmental gross negligence in history. The people of the world deserve transparency and factual answers on vital questions.
Mar 16, 2024
The US government (USG) funded and supported a program of dangerous laboratory research that may have resulted in the creation and accidental laboratory release of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the Covid-19 pandemic. Following the outbreak, the USG lied in order to cover up its possible role. The US Government should correct the lies, find the facts, and make amends with the rest of the world.
A group of intrepid truth-seekers—journalists, scientists, whistleblowers—have uncovered a vast amount of information pointing to the likely laboratory origin of SARS-CoV-2. Most important has been the intrepid work of the The Intercept and US Right to Know (USRTK), especially investigative reporter Emily Kopp at USRTK.
Based on this investigative work, the Republican-led House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is now carrying out an important investigation in a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. In the Senate, the leading voice for transparency, honesty, and reason in investigating the origin of SARS-Cov-2 has been Republican Senator Rand Paul.
The evidence of a possible laboratory creation revolves around a multi-year US-led research program that involved US and Chinese scientists. The research was designed by US scientists, funded mainly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Department of Defense, and administered by a US organization, the EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), with much of the work taking place at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The US owes the full truth, and perhaps ample financial compensation, to the rest of the world, depending on what the facts ultimately reveal.
Here are facts that we know as of today.
First, the NIH became the home for biodefense research starting in 2001. In other words, the NIH became a research arm of the military and intelligence communities. Biodefense funding from the Defense Department budget went to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s division, the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
Second, NIAID and DARPA (in the Defense Department) supported extensive research on potential pathogens for biowarfare and biodefense, and for the design of vaccines to protect against biowarfare or accidental laboratory releases of natural or manipulated pathogens. Some of the work was carried out at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories of the NIH, which manipulated and tested viruses using its in-house bat colony.
Third, NIAID became a large-scale financial supporter of Gain of Function (GoF) research, meaning laboratory experiments designed to genetically alter pathogens to make them even more pathogenic, such as viruses that are easier to transmit and/or more likely to kill infected individuals. This kind of research is inherently dangerous, both because it aims to create more dangerous pathogens and because those new pathogens can escape from the laboratory, either accidentally or deliberately (e.g., as an act of biowarfare or terrorism).
Fourth, many leading US scientists opposed GoF research. One of the leading opponents inside the government was Dr. Robert Redfield, an Army virologist who would later be the Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) at the start of the pandemic. Redfield suspected from the start that the pandemic resulted from NIH-supported research, but says that he was sidelined by Fauci.
Fifth, because of the very high risks associated with GoF research, the US Government added additional biosafety regulations in 2017. GoF research would have to be carried out in highly secure laboratories, meaning at Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) or Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4). Work in a BSL-3 or 4 facility is more expensive and time-consuming than work in a BSL-2 facility because of the added controls against an escape of the pathogen from the facility.
Sixth, one NIH-backed research group, EcoHealth Alliance (EHA), proposed to move some of its GoF research to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). In 2017, EHA submitted a proposal to the US Government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects (DARPA) for GoF work at WIV. The proposal, named DEFUSE, was a veritable “cookbook” for making viruses like SARS-CoV-2 in the laboratory. The DEFUSE plan was to investigate more than 180 previously unreported strains of Betacoronavirus that had been collected by WIV, and to use GoF techniques to make these viruses more dangerous. Specifically, the project proposed to add protease sites like the furin cleavage site (FCS) to natural viruses in order to enhance the infectivity and transmissibility of the virus.
Seventh, in the draft proposal, the EHA director boasted that “the BSL2 nature of work on SARSr-CoVs makes our system highly cost effective relative to other bat-virus systems,” prompting the lead scientist on the EHA proposal to comment that US scientists would “freak out” if they learned of US government support for GoF research at WIV in a BSL2 facility.
Eighth, the Defense Department rejected the DEFUSE proposal in 2018, yet NIAID funding for EHA covered the key scientists of the DEFUSE project. EHA therefore had ongoing NIH funding to carry out the DEFUSE research program.
Ninth, when the outbreak was first noted in Wuhan in late 2019 and January 2020, key US virologists associated with NIH believed that the SARS-CoV-2 had most likely emerged from GoF research, and said so on a phone call with Fauci on February 1, 2020. The most striking clue for these scientists was the presence of the FCS in SARS-CoV-2, with the FCS appearing at exactly the location in the virus (the S1/S2 junction) that had been proposed in the DEFUSE program.
Tenth, the top NIH officials, including Director Francis Collins and NIAID Director Fauci, tried to hide the NIH-supported GoF research, and promoted the publication of a scientific paper (“The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2”) in March 2020 declaring a natural origin of the virus. The paper completely ignored the DEFUSE proposal.
Eleventh, some US officials began to point their fingers at WIV as the source of the laboratory leak while hiding the NIH-funding and EHA-led research program that may have led to the virus.
Twelfth, the above facts have come to light only as a result of intrepid investigative reporting, whistleblowers, and leaks from inside the US Government, including the leak of the DEFUSE proposal. The Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services determined in 2023 that NIH did not adequately oversee the EHA grants.
Thirteenth, investigators have also realized in retrospect that researchers at Rocky Mountain Labs, together with key scientists associated with EHA, were infecting the RML Egyptian fruit bats with SARS-like viruses in experiments closely linked to those proposed in DEFUSE.
Fourteenth, the FBI and Department of Energy have reported their assessments that the laboratory escape of SARS-CoV-2 is the most likely explanation of the virus.
Fifteenth, a whistleblower from inside the CIA has recently charged that the CIA team investigating the outbreak concluded that SARS-CoV-2 most likely emerged from the laboratory, but that senior CIA officials bribed the team to report a natural origin of the virus.
The sum of the evidence – and the absence of reliable evidence pointing to a natural origin (see here and here) – adds up to the possibility that the US funded and implemented a dangerous GoF research program that led to the creation of SARS-CoV-2 and then to a worldwide pandemic. A powerful recent assessment by mathematical biologist Alex Washburne reaches the conclusion “beyond reasonable doubt that SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab…” He also notes that the collaborators “proceeded to mount what can legitimately be called a disinformation campaign” to hide the laboratory origin.
A US-funded laboratory origin of Covid-19 would certainly constitute the most significant case of governmental gross negligence in world history. Moreover, there is a high likelihood that the US Government continues to this day to fund dangerous GoF work as part of its biodefense program. The US owes the full truth, and perhaps ample financial compensation, to the rest of the world, depending on what the facts ultimately reveal.
We need three urgent actions. The first is an independent scientific investigation in which all laboratories involved in the EHA research program in the US and China fully open their books and records to the independent investigators. The second is a worldwide halt on GoF research until an independent global scientific body sets grounds rules for biosafety. The third is for the UN General Assembly to establish rigorous legal and financial accountability for governments that violate international safety norms through dangerous research activities that threaten the health and security of the rest of the world.
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'Threat to Truth and Democracy': DeSantis Urged to Disavow Campaign Deepfakes of Trump
"Deepfake technology poses a genuine challenge to the future functioning of our democracy," said Public Citizen. "If voters cannot trust the authenticity of what they see and hear online, it's hard to know how our democracy can work."
Jun 13, 2023
As Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis' campaign spreads fake images of 2024 GOP rival Donald Trump embracing former White House Coronavirus Task Force chief Anthony Fauci, a leading U.S. consumer advocacy group on Tuesday urged the Florida governor to take down and disavow the photos and pledge to stop using artificial intelligence-generate deepfake imagery going forward.
Agence France-Presse reported last week that images showing Trump hugging and kissing Fauci in a DeSantis campaign ad were likely deepfakes, sparking condemnation from Republicans who support the twice-impeached, twice-indicted former president's 2024 candidacy.
The video was shared on Twitter by "DeSantis War Room," a "rapid response" account launched last August.
It wasn't just Republicans who sounded the alarm on the ad's use of deepfake technology. On Tuesday, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen asked DeSantis' campaign to "pledge not to use deepfake technology to trick voters" and to take down the video of Trump and Fauci.
According to the group:
Generative AI and deepfake technology—a type of artificial intelligence used to create convincing images, audio, and video hoaxes—is evolving very rapidly. This is not a technology that advantages one candidate over another. Anyone can use it to deceptive effect. That's why all political players have an equal interest in preventing abuse of this technology.
Beyond the shared interest of all political candidates in not being victimized by a deepfake fraud, there is a broader public interest. Deepfake technology poses a genuine challenge to the future functioning of our democracy. If voters cannot trust the authenticity of what they see and hear online, it's hard to know how our democracy can work.
"Generative AI now poses a significant threat to truth and democracy as we know it," Public Citizen president Robert Weissman said in a statement. "Every party and candidate should commit not to employ deceptive deepfakes, which definitionally involve tricking the public into believing something that is not true."
Last month, Public Citizen also called for the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to issue a rule prohibiting candidates from using manipulative generative AI in campaign ads.
"One particularly alarming scenario is that an 'October surprise' deepfake video released shortly before Election Day could go viral—with no ability for voters to determine that it's fake, no time for a candidate to deny it, and no way to demonstrate convincingly that it's fake," Public Citizen said. "Both parties, their presidential candidates, and the FEC can prevent this (and many other) easily foreseeable abuses of the technology by disavowing and banning deceptive deepfakes in political campaigns now."
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Fauci Accuses Rand Paul of Kindling 'The Crazies' During Heated Exchange
"We are here at a committee to look at a virus now that has killed nearly 900,000 people... And you keep coming back to personal attacks on me."
Jan 11, 2022
As U.S. Covid-19 cases surge amid an unprecedented wave of Omicron variant infections, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday parried a salvo of attacks by Republican senators, led by Rand Paul, who object to his expert-endorsed countermeasures against the unrelenting pandemic.
"I have... threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me."
During a Senate hearing, Paul (Ky.) accused Fauci--who is also the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden--of using his "$420,000 salary to attack scientists that disagree" with him.
Fauci retorted: "In usual fashion, senator, you are distorting everything about me. It's the same thing every year... You keep distorting the truth."
"We are here at a committee to look at a virus now that has killed nearly 900,000 people," he continued. "And the purpose of the committee was to try to get things out, how we can help the American public. And you keep coming back to personal attacks on me."
Addressing the panel, Fauci said, "What happens when he gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there and I have... threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls because people are lying about me."
Holding up a printed screenshot of a Paul campaign fundraising email calling for Fauci's termination, the doctor noted the arrest in Iowa last month of a man who was driving from California to Washington, D.C. with a "hit list" and the alleged intent to assassinate him, Biden, and other government officials.
"The police asked him where he was going and he was going to Washington, D.C. to kill Dr. Fauci," he said. "They found in his car an AR-15 and multiple magazines of ammunition because he thinks that maybe I'm killing people."
Another Republican senator, Roger Marshall of Kansas, asked Fauci about emails pertaining to purportedly top-secret--yet unverified--documents leaked by the far-right, conspiracy theory-prone group Project Veritas claiming to link the NIAID chief with the creation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19 in a Wuhan, China laboratory. Far-right figures including U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and commentator Candace Owens have amplified the unsubstantiated claim.
"It really pains me to have to just point out to the American public how absolutely incorrect you are," Fauci told Marshall. "Once again, you are completely and unequivocally incorrect."
Fauci has fended off attacks by Paul and other congressional Republicans over the government's Covid-19 response in previous hearings. Their latest exchange comes amid a massive surge in coronavirus cases driven by the highly infectious Omicron variant.
According to Johns Hopkins University's Coronavirus Resource Center, nearly 5.5 million people worldwide--including more than 840,000 in the U.S.--have died during the two-year pandemic.
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Expect an 'Unprecedented Number of Social Disruptions' Amid Omicron Surge: Health Experts
With infections spreading like wildfire and pediatric hospitalizations for Covid-19 at an all-time high, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona admitted that there will be "bumps in the road" as schools attempt to reopen this week.
Jan 02, 2022
As the ultra-transmissible Omicron variant causes Covid-19 cases in the United States and around the world to explode at an unprecedented rate, public health experts are warning that the first month of 2022 is likely to be defined by more suffering and widespread disruptions of daily life.
"Omicron is truly everywhere," Megan Ranney, a professor of emergency medicine at Brown University's School of Public Health, told CNN on Friday night. "What I am so worried about over the next month or so is that our economy is going to shut down, not because of policies from the federal government or from the state governments, but rather because so many of us are ill."
"We are going to see the number of cases in this country rise so dramatically, we are going to have a hard time keeping everyday life operating."
A day earlier, Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told MSNBC that "we are going to see the number of cases in this country rise so dramatically, we are going to have a hard time keeping everyday life operating."
"The next month is going to be a viral blizzard," he said. "All of society is going to be pressured by this."
Last week, the U.S. broke multiple records for its seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases, including an all-time high of 585,013 new infections on Thursday. Researchers said recently that Omicron is potentially 70 times more contagious than the previously dominant Delta variant, which fueled earlier spikes.
While numerous studies have found that Omicron is less lethal than previous strains of the coronavirus, disease severity still depends in large part on a patient's vaccination status.
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky said last week during a White House Covid-19 briefing that "compared to people who are boosted, if you are unvaccinated, you are 10 times more likely to be a case and 20 times more likely to be a fatality. Compared to people who are (vaccinated), you are 17 times more likely to be in the hospital."
"So our vaccines are working really well to prevent severe disease and hospitalization and death," Walensky added. "They're actually also working quite well to prevent cases, although we do know more breakthrough cases are happening in the context of Omicron."
According to the CDC, 62% of the total U.S. population are fully vaccinated, 73.3% have received at least one dose, and 33.4% have received a booster dose.
Admissions to hospitals--worn thin after dealing with the pandemic for 22 months--are currently surging, prompting concerns about bed and staff capacity. On New Year's Day, roughly 90,000 people in the U.S. were hospitalized with Covid-19, up 30% compared with the previous two weeks, state and local health data show.
"Our health system is at a very different place than we were in previous surges," Esther Choo, a professor of emergency medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, told CNN on Saturday. "We have extremely high numbers of just lost healthcare workers, we've lost at least 20% of our healthcare workforce, probably more."
"This strain is so infectious," Choo added, "that I think all of us know many, many colleagues who are currently infected or have symptoms and are under quarantine."
Lucky Tran, managing director of March for Science, argued Saturday that if the U.S. does not do a better job of "protecting our healthcare system, workers, the immunocompromised, and the vulnerable," then it is "surrendering to Covid."
Last week, the CDC unveiled new guidelines for people who test positive for Covid-19--reducing the recommended isolation period from 10 to five days for individuals who are asymptomatic. While the CDC advised people with Covid-19 to wear a mask everywhere, including at home if they live with others, for five additional days, the agency did not require them to test negative before returning to normal activities.
Progressives criticized the move as "reckless," arguing that pressuring employees to return before it is clear that they are no longer infectious prioritizes corporate interests over worker safety and public health.
Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said Sunday that in the wake of significant "pushback," the CDC is considering updating its guidance to include a negative test before leaving self-isolation.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nearly 78% of the nation's ICU beds are in use, with roughly 24% occupied by Covid-19 patients.
In an attempt to relieve overburdened emergency rooms, several states have requested federal medical personnel to help provide treatment and ramp up testing.
That includes Texas' Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who had the audacity to brag about defeating one of the Biden administration's legally contested federal vaccine requirements just hours after asking the White House for help.
The U.S. is now averaging nearly 1,240 Covid-19 deaths per day, and the latest projection from the University of Washington's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimates that the nation's pandemic death toll will climb by more than 50,000 during the month of January. More than 824,000 Americans have already died from the disease.
Despite mounting evidence that the Omicron variant is not as virulent as Delta and the original SARS CoV-2, "increased contagiousness can compensate for that lessened severity with sheer numbers of infections," The Week's Ryan Cooper pointed out Saturday.
"This strain is so infectious that I think all of us know many, many colleagues who are currently infected or have symptoms and are under quarantine."
"It would be a good idea to hunker down and avoid the emergency room if at all possible for about the next 6 to 8 weeks," he added.
On top of overwhelming the nation's fragile healthcare system, the skyrocketing Covid-19 case count has already started to upend daily life in other ways, and there are few signs that infections will slow down before the end of January.
Because so many baggage handlers, flight attendants, and pilots are out sick, thousands of flights have been canceled in recent days, and New York City officials have been forced to temporarily shut down three subway lines due to staffing shortages caused by the virus.
"Get ready. We have to remember, in the next few weeks, there's going to be an unprecedented number of social disruptions," Peter Hotez, dean of Baylor University's National School of Tropical Medicine, told CNN last week.
The Omicron variant is so transmissible that "even a quick, transient encounter can lead to an infection, CNN reported, "including if someone's mask is loose, or a person quickly pulls their mask down, or an individual enters an elevator in which someone else has just coughed."
"At the beginning of this pandemic... we all were taught, you have a significant exposure if you're within six feet of somebody and you're in contact with them for more than 15 minutes," CNN medical analyst Jonathan Reiner told the news outlet. "All these rules are out the window. This is a hyper-contagious virus."
According to Michael Siegel, a visiting professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at the Tufts University School of Medicine, "We are nearing a humanitarian disaster and no one seems to care."
As the holiday season recedes, new data show that people under 50 constitute an increasing share of current Covid-19 cases, which is likely to have a detrimental impact on public services given prevailing employment patterns.
Meanwhile, with the return to school quickly approaching, a growing proportion of teenagers and young children are also being infected and falling ill.
Pediatric hospitalizations for Covid-19 hit a record-high on Friday. According to the CDC, an average of 521 individuals under 18 were hospitalized with Covid-19 per day last week, an 86.1% increase over the previous week. By contrast, coronavirus-related hospital admissions grew by 40.4% for all age groups combined during the same time period.
"Put the gigantic numbers of cases together with the small number affected, plus the proportion of unvaccinated, and I'm really worried that we're going to be in for a tidal wave of admissions, particularly for kids in the coming weeks."
Children are far more likely to be hospitalized with Covid-19 if they are unvaccinated. CDC data show that roughly 53% of kids aged 12 to 17 are fully inoculated. Just 14.2% of 5 to 11-year-olds have received two doses. Children under five remain ineligible for a Covid-19 vaccine, and experts don't expect a shot to be available to them until the middle of this year.
"The explosive rise in cases is really fueling what normally might be a relatively small proportion... of kids who are experiencing these severe outcomes," Jeanne Marrazzo, director of the University of Alabama School of Medicine Division of Infectious Diseases, told CNN. "But you put the gigantic numbers of cases together with the small number affected, plus the proportion of unvaccinated, and I'm really worried that we're going to be in for a tidal wave of admissions, particularly for kids in the coming weeks."
Given the uncontrolled spread of the virus, many educators, students, parents, and health experts have expressed concern about the impending reopening of schools. Although some universities have announced that the spring semester will begin online, many secondary and primary schools appear to be opting for in-person, rather than virtual, learning.
Hotez predicted last week that keeping schools open throughout January will prove difficult "because of this high transmissibility--especially if you start seeing absences of school teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria staff."
On Sunday, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona urged schools to do everything in their power to remain open for full-time, in-person learning during the Omicron surge.
But he also admitted that there will be "bumps in the road," and acknowledged that short-term closures and remote instruction may be necessary in the coming weeks.
Speaking with CNN on Saturday, James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University Hospital, said that "what's coming for the rest of the country could be very serious and they need to be prepared."
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Why Dangerous Fox News Talking Heads are Comparing Fauci to Notorious Nazi Death Camp Doctor
It's another lie—designed to keep the pandemic going in America. It completely ignores the success that vaccine mandates have had from United Airlines to the New York Police Department to the largest hospital chain in Houston.
Dec 01, 2021
They're doubling down on death as a political strategy, a process Trump began the week of April 7, 2020 (as I documented in damning detail eight months ago).
If Meadows' book is right and Trump was willing to infect then-77-year-old Biden at the debate, we have one more data point in the evil Trump/GOP Death Cult's plan to leverage the Covid pandemic as a political weapon.
And now they're accusing Dr. Fauci of behaving like the notorious Nazi death camp doctor, Josef Mengele. Seriously: former "real news" reporter Lara Logan laid out that unhinged rant on Fox News this week using the old "people are saying" rhetorical trick propagandists so love.
"This is what people say to me," Logan told an audience of millions, "that he doesn't represent science to them. He represents Joseph Mengele, the Nazi doctor who did experiments on Jews during the Second World War and in the concentration camps. And I am talking about people all across the world are saying this..."
Over 800,000 Americans are now dead from Covid, as we track daily at TrumpDeathToll.org.
Multiple studies suggest as many as a third of the roughly 50 million Americans who've contracted Covid are now disabled by having had the disease, many for life. These mostly unvaccinated people are now crippled with "long Covid" conditions ranging from chronic exhaustion to dementia to life-shortening heart and kidney disease, which can't be helping the labor shortages across key sectors of our economy.
Dr. Fauci has been working for two years to try to reduce that death toll, and on Fox they're calling him Dr. Mengele? As the Auschwitz Memorial museum tweeted after Logan's comments:
"Exploiting the tragedy of people who became victims of criminal pseudo-medical experiments in Auschwitz in a debate about vaccines, pandemic and people who fight for saving human lives is shameful. It is disrespectful to victims & a sad symptom of moral and intellectual decline."
It's also a huge distraction from a very real tragedy that could largely have been avoided if Trump had merely encouraged people to wear masks and social distance before the vaccine was available, and pushed his followers hard to get inoculated after the vaccine was available.
But the GOP math is simple. When economies sag, voters choose the other party to take over: it's worked that way for 200+ years in American politics. So in 2020 Trump pushed Americans to ignore the virus and keep things "normal," leading to tens of millions of infections.
Trump was apparently even willing to infect his 77-year-old opponent in the 2020 election: his Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, writes in his new book that Trump tested positive for Covid three days before his debate with Joe Biden and lied about it after getting a second, negative test. Thankfully, Biden kept his distance from Trump throughout the debate, as Trump would be in the hospital with Covid within two weeks.
When that didn't work, Biden survived, and Trump lost anyway, starting the week that Biden was inaugurated Trump and his followers began discouraging people from getting vaccinated.
And that's their strategy now: if they can keep America sick and on-edge, that'll keep the economy soft, which will work to Democrats' disadvantage in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
While Democrats treat public health emergencies as serious issues, Republicans see them as a way to gain political advantage.
Remember when President Obama let an American with Ebola into the country to receive treatment? The GOP went totally hysterical, some even calling for his impeachment.
One conservative commentator wrote, "Today, his ambition to be a hero to Africa is undermining common sense approaches to protecting Americans from the Ebola virus." Republican Senator Joni Ernst called for Obama's impeachment for behaving like a "dictator" and railed against him over Ebola.
My old debating opponent, Phyllis Schlafly, proclaimed:
"That was the purpose of Ellis Island--to have a waiting place where it was decided whether people were healthy enough or responsible enough to come into our country. The idea that anybody can just walk in and carry this disease with them is just an outrage, and it is Obama's fault because he's responsible for doing it."
And now, as Mark Sumner reports at Daily Kos, four Trump-appointed federal judges have put a hold on President Biden's July efforts to make sure even hospital workers are fully vaccinated through OSHA workplace mandates:
In July, President Joe Biden issued a series of rules requiring that federal workers, and workers at companies that receive federal contracts, must be vaccinated. That included health care workers who work for hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid payments.
However, earlier this month, a three-judge panel in Texas blocked the implementation of the mandate for many large companies. Now, as The Washington Post reports, a federal district judge in Missouri has acted to block even the mandate for health care workers.
All are Trump judges, and the most recent decision from Trump-appointed District Court Judge Matthew Schelp quotes extensively from lies told almost daily on Fox and other rightwing media.
His decision claimed that there's such widespread opposition to vaccination that: "The loss of [vaccine-refusing hospital] staffing in many instances will result in no care at all, as some facilities will be forced to close altogether."
It's another lie, designed to keep the pandemic going in America. It completely ignores the success that vaccine mandates have had from United Airlines to the New York Police Department to the largest hospital chain in Houston. In every case, a tiny minority of people yelled and squealed and then got vaccinated.
As a result of these GOP lies and a steady campaign in rightwing media and among Republican politicians casting doubt on vaccines, however, we have the worst Covid numbers and the highest Covid death toll in the developed world.
And we're all forced to interact with 60 million people who refuse to get vaccinated or even wear masks, because they either are willing to lay down their lives and health to help the GOP or were simply suckered into false beliefs by "friends" on social media.
As David Leonhardt documents at The New York Times:
"In October [2021], 25 out of every 100,000 residents of heavily Trump counties died from Covid, more than three times higher than the rate in heavily Biden counties (7.8 per 100,000). October was the fifth consecutive month that the percentage gap between the death rates in Trump counties and Biden counties widened."
Every one of those deaths was a loss to a family, a human tragedy. And the majority of them were preventable-- if only Republican politicians had decided that human lives were more important than political power.
Instead, they chose the classic tactic of tyrants throughout history: lie to the people no matter how many die as a result.
This article was first published on The Hartmann Report.
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Health Experts 'Speechless' as DeSantis Taps Anti-Mask Vaccine Skeptic for Florida Surgeon General
One Democratic U.S. congressman called the move "a complete slap in the face to the families of the more than 50,000 Floridians who have died from Covid."
Sep 22, 2021
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis came under fire from Democratic lawmakers and public health experts following the Republican's Tuesday announcement that Dr. Joseph Ladapo--who opposes mask and coronavirus vaccine mandates--would be the state's next surgeon general.
"I'm speechless. I attended medical school with Dr. Joseph Ladapo and to say I'm shocked by his opposition to mask and vaccine mandates is an understatement."
--Dr. Uche Blackstock, physician
The Miami Herald reports Ladapo, a Harvard-trained physician and researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, will oversee the Florida Department of Health pending confirmation by the state's Republican-controlled Senate.
Known for advocating individual liberty over community-based precautions in the fight against Covid-19, Ladapo's views on masks and vaccines closely align with those of DeSantis, whose July executive order banning school mask mandates was ruled unconstitutional by a state judge the following month.
"Florida will completely reject fear as a way of making policies," Ladapo said during a Tuesday press conference in Tallahassee.
"Vaccines are up to the person. There's nothing special about them compared to any other preventive measure," he added. "The state should be promoting good health, and vaccination isn't the only path to that. It's been treated almost like a religion. It's just senseless."
According to The New York Times, Florida currently has the United States' highest number of daily Covid-19 deaths, the nation's second-highest per-capita mortality rate, and a death rate nearly three times the national average.
As The Guardian reports:
Last week, Florida surpassed 50,000 coronavirus deaths since the pandemic begun, with around one in every 400 Florida residents who were alive in March 2020 now dead from the virus. Only cancer and heart disease has killed more Floridians in this time.
In a June opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal, Ladapo and Yale epidemiologist Harvey A. Risch wrote that "the risks of a Covid-19 vaccine may outweigh the benefits for certain low-risk populations, such as children, young adults and people who have recovered from Covid-19." The authors cited reports in the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)--which are unverified and can be filed by anyone.
Ladapo also raised alarm among public health experts after signing the Great Barrington Declaration, a statement by a trio of public health experts calling on governments to lift lockdown restrictions on young and healthy people in order to spread the coronavirus to enough people to achieve herd immunity.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the herd immunity theory proposed in the declaration "scientifically and ethically problematic," while National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Anthony Fauci blasted the document as "nonsense and very dangerous."
U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist (D-Fla.)--who served as Florida's Republican governor from 2007 to 2011 and is running for the office again as a Democrat--tweeted Tuesday that Ladapo's selection as surgeon general "is a complete slap in the face to the families of the more than 50,000 Floridians who have died from Covid."
In a statement, Florida state Sen. Janet Cruz (D-18) said that "the governor has chosen someone who has questioned the safety of the Covid vaccines, has advocated against masks as a way to stop the spread of the virus, and who believes herd immunity through natural infection is the best possible way to end this pandemic."
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Amid Pandemic-Driven Liquid Oxygen Shortage, Orlando Asks Residents to Slash Water Use or Face Boil Alert
Mayor Buddy Dyer called the situation "another result of what happens when residents do not get vaccinated, become critically ill, and need dire medical support and treatment."
Aug 20, 2021
As Florida's Republican-led Board of Education warned school districts they would face fines for not complying with Gov. Ron DeSantis' ban on mask mandates, leaders in the state's fourth-largest city issued a plea that vividly illustrated the consequences of the governor's refusal to follow public health guidance.
"This is another unfortunate impact of the pandemic continuing to surge in our community."
--Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer
On Friday, the state Board of Education ordered school boards in Alachua and Broward counties to disclose the salaries of all their members so that the DeSantis administration can begin withholding 1/12 of their pay each month. The move is retaliation for the districts' implementation of mandatory mask requirements for all staff and students in defiance of DeSantis' ban on such sweeping mandates.
The Republican administration accuses the districts of running afoul of a rule requiring public schools to "allow for a parent or legal guardian of the student to opt-out the student from wearing a face covering or mask."
State Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran explained in a press release that "these are the initial consequences to [the districts'] intentional refusal to follow state law and state rule to purposefully and willingly violate the rights of parents. This is simply unacceptable behavior."
Proponents argue that mask mandates will save lives in a state with one of the nation's lowest coronavirus vaccination rates, and some of its highest Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations. Public health experts say the former is a direct cause of the latter.
"You're having a very difficult situation because of the low level of vaccination that you have, not only in Florida but some of the other states," National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said earlier this month. "Florida is really one of the worst in the sense of the number of new cases and now the number of new hospitalizations."
President Joe Biden responded to Florida's threat against the school boards by vowing to cover any salary shortfalls caused by punitive withholding.
"The Biden Administration is fully committed to a safe and healthy return to in-person learning for all students this fall," U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement. "It is deeply troubling to see state leaders putting politics ahead of the health and safety of our students, and that instead of supporting our educators for doing the right thing, state leaders are trying to punish them."
In another unintended consequence of Florida's largely preventable Covid-19 surge, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer and the Orlando Utilities Commission on Friday urgently appealed to residents of the state's fourth-largest city to dramatically cut back on their water usage due to a pandemic-driven shortage of liquid oxygen, an essential component of water purification.
According to The Orlando Sentinel:
If commercial and residential customers are unable to reduce water usage quickly and sufficiently, Orlando Utilities Commission may issue a system-wide alert for boiling water needed for drinking and cooking. Without reductions in water usage, a boil-water alert would come within a week, utility officials said.
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer asked residents to immediately stop watering their lawns, washing their cars, and using pressure washers. Landscape irrigation consumes about 40% of the water provided by OUC.
"This is another unfortunate impact of the pandemic continuing to surge in our community," Dyer, a Democrat, said at a news conference. "And it's another result of what happens when residents do not get vaccinated, become critically ill, and need dire medical support and treatment."
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California Requires Covid-19 Vaccines or Tests for Teachers as US Education Secretary Backs Mandates
A Golden State union leader called the governor's move "an appropriate next step to ensure the safety of our school communities and to protect our youngest learners."
Aug 11, 2021
As embattled Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that California will be the first state that requires all school staff to either prove they are vaccinated against Covid-19 or submit to weekly testing, U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona endorsed such policies.
"Vaccinations are how we will end this pandemic."
--California Gov. Gavin Newsom
The developments come as coronavirus cases, largely fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, are rising in communities across the United States, especially those with lower vaccination rates. U.S hospitalizations and deaths are also increasing.
"To give parents confidence that their children are safe as schools return to full, in-person learning, we are urging all school staff to get vaccinated. Vaccinations are how we will end this pandemic," Newsom said Wednesday. "As a father, I look forward to the start of the school year and seeing all California kids back in the classroom."
Dr. Tomas Aragon, director of the California Department of Public Health and the state public health officer, said that "there's no substitute for in-person instruction, and California will continue to lead the nation in keeping students and staff safe while ensuring fully open classrooms."
"Today's order will help the state's continued efforts to increase vaccinations, similar to the orders encouraging state and healthcare workers and businesses to get vaccinated," Aragon added.
Other public health, education, and labor leaders in the state also welcomed Newsom's move, with many pointing out that none of the vaccines authorized in the United States are approved for children under age 12.
"Educators want to be in classrooms with their students, and the best way to make sure that happens is for everyone who is medically eligible to be vaccinated, with robust testing and multi-tiered safety measures," said California Teachers Association President E. Toby Boyd.
The governor's announcement, Boyd continued, "is an appropriate next step to ensure the safety of our school communities and to protect our youngest learners under 12 who are not yet vaccine eligible from this highly contagious Delta variant."
"All along we have let community conditions, science, and public health guidance lead us and have strongly advocated for multiple layers of safety protections--vaccinations, masking, physical distancing, improved ventilation, and robust testing--to keep our school communities safe," he added, emphasizing the importance of involving educators in safety plans.
Boyd highlighted that the policy provides an "important alternative for those educators who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, while continuing to send a strong and clear message that every one of us--educators, eligible students, parents, and staff--must be doing everything we can if we hope to win this fight against Covid and keep our schools open safely."
California Federation of Teachers president Jeff Freitas also applauded the new policy, saying that combined with other key mitigation measures, it "will ensure we are doing everything possible to keep schools safe for in-person learning."
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) California said it "strongly advocates that all policy considerations for school plans should start with the goal of keeping students safe and physically present in school," and that "vaccination is an essential piece of the layered safety practices designed to ensure safe in-person learning for California's children."
"As the next school year begins, every effort must be made to keep students in schools in person, especially those that are vulnerable or are not eligible to be vaccinated," AAP California added. "All children should be ensured safe, equitable access to education."
California's policy will take effect on Thursday, and schools must be in full compliance by October 15, according to the governor's office, which noted that "robust and free testing resources are available to K-12 schools" through a state program.
Meanwhile, during a virtual National Press Foundation event on Wednesday, the U.S. education secretary said that he would "favor the vaccine being required" for school staff.
"I wouldn't have gotten the vaccine or had my children get it if I questioned whether or not it was safe," Cardona said, adding that "vaccination is the best way to get our schools open."
Cardona's comments and California's new policy come a day after the nation's leading infectious disease doctor also endorsed such mandates for adults in the nation's education system.
"I'm going to upset people on this, but I think we should," Dr. Anthony Fauci said of requiring school staff to get vaccinated, appearing on MSNBC.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that "we are in a critical situation now. We have had 615,000-plus deaths and we are in a major surge now as we're going into the fall, into the school season. This is very serious business."
"You're not gonna get mandates centrally from the federal government," Fauci said, making the case for local rules while recognizing expected backlash over personal freedom. "I think we're in such a serious situation now that under certain circumstances, mandates should be done."
Fauci's remarks followed American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten endorsing vaccination requirements for educators, saying Sunday that "as a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates."
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If a Vaccine Resistant Strain Develops in Africa, Will Dr. Fauci Lose His Job?
The idea that millions of people will needlessly die because our political leaders did not want to jeopardize the profits of the pharmaceutical industry is too horrible to be aired in places like the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio.
Aug 04, 2021
This is a very serious question, even if I'm using a bit of clickbait here. I'm not out to get Dr. Fauci, who deserves some sort of Nobel Prize for trying to give straight information to the public, even as Donald Trump was doing everything he could to minimize the pandemic. But there is an important issue of both, our current failings in vaccinating the world, and a system that almost always allows those at the top to escape responsibility for their failures.
I have gone on at length before about the need to vaccinate the world. The spread of the Delta variant should make the point obvious to everyone. The more the virus spreads, the more it has opportunities to mutate.
We are actually fortunate with the Delta variant since it seems our vaccines are still effective in reducing the risk of infection and very effective in reducing the risk of severe illness or death. But this is just luck. If the pandemic spreads enough, we will see more mutations. It is entirely possible that a new strain will develop against which our vaccines provide us little or no protection.
If the pandemic spreads enough, we will see more mutations. It is entirely possible that a new strain will develop against which our vaccines provide us little or no protection.
It may be the case, as Pfizer and Moderna claim, that it will be possible to quickly design an effective mRNA vaccine against a new strain. But even in a best case scenario, where it takes just a few weeks to develop a new vaccine, it will still be many months before it can be tested, produced, and distributed to hundreds of millions of people across the country and billions across the world.
In the meantime, we will be seeing a whole new round of infections and deaths, as well as trillions of dollars of lost economic output. And, just to be clear, these trillions in lost output is not just an issue of stacks of dollar bills in a vault, this translates into people going without food, medical care, shelter and other basic needs. Rich countries have the resources to largely protect their populations from most of the economic impact of the pandemic; developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America do not.
Of course, even for the rich countries it will mean trillions more in government debt. That means a lot of to some people when a Democrat is in the White House.
The Open-Source Alternative
The drug companies will tell us that they are actually doing the best they can in getting the world vaccinated. They have in fact ramped up production considerably, although the bulk of their vaccines is still going to wealthy countries.
But the real question is whether we could be producing more vaccines, taking advantage of capacity not only in rich countries but in countries like India, Brazil, South Africa, Pakistan and other developing countries with potential manufacturing capacity. Our friends in the pharmaceutical industry tell us that manufacturing these vaccines is a complex process and can't just be done overnight.
We are actually fortunate with the Delta variant since it seems our vaccines are still effective in reducing the risk of infection and very effective in reducing the risk of severe illness or death. But this is just luck.
Of course, everyone in the world understands that it can't be done overnight, which is why many of us were advocating ramping up capacity a year and a half ago. The pharmaceutical industry has been engaged in a filibuster, at least since October, when South Africa and India introduced their WTO resolution for suspending intellectual property rules for the duration of the pandemic, telling us it takes time to increase production. And, if we had focused on increasing production at the time they began their filibuster, we could have produced many more vaccines by now.
The logic of open-sourcing vaccines is that we would put the details of the manufacturing process for the vaccines on the web, allowing engineers around the world to study them as the basis for new facilities or converting existing ones. Ideally, the engineers for the Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca and the rest (including the Chinese, Russian, and Indian vaccines) would also be available to conduct webinars and to provide in-person guidance.
Last month I was on a panel with someone from the pharmaceutical industry who questioned how this sort of transfer could be legally required. I pointed out that we (the U.S. and other rich country governments) should offer to pay a reasonable price for this expertise. If the drug companies refused, then we should go directly to their top engineers and offer them exorbitant pay (e.g. $1-2 million a month) for sharing their knowledge. Since they are undoubtedly bound by non-disclosure agreements, so governments would also have to commit to cover their legal expenses and any payments resulting from lawsuits. (The drug industry lawsuits, for sharing life-saving information in a pandemic, should at least help to clear up any ambiguity about their reason for existence.)
If vaccinating the world was treated as a real emergency, does anyone doubt something like this would happen? If GE or Lockheed had developed a new sonar in World War II that made it easier to detect German submarines, does anyone think we would just sit there and say that this is proprietary knowledge, and nothing can be done, if the companies chose not to share it with the government?
In addition to sharing existing knowledge, open-sourcing the production process should also allow for innovations that would increase production. The official position of the industry is that they have mastered the process for manufacturing their vaccines and it cannot possibly be improved. This claim is absurd on its face.
In February, Pfizer announced that it had discovered a way to cut its production time in half. Pfizer also discovered that its vaccine did not have to be super-frozen at temperatures of less than minus 90 degrees Fahrenheit, but instead could be stored in a normal freezer for up to two weeks. This makes a huge difference in transporting its vaccine, especially in developing countries. Pfizer also discovered that its standard vial contained enough material for six doses, rather than just five. As a result of this mistake, one sixth of the Pfizer vaccines were being thrown down the toilet for the first couple of months after it was approved.
As much as the industry and politicians might want to pretend there was/is no way to accelerate the production of vaccines, that story is not credible.
Given this history, it's hard to believe that there is no way to further improve on the production processes of Pfizer or the other vaccine manufacturers. If engineers all around the world had the opportunity to inspect their methods, surely many would be able to come up with innovations that could speed up the production and distribution of vaccines.
Does Making Deadly Mistakes Carry Consequences?
As much as the industry and politicians might want to pretend there was/is no way to accelerate the production of vaccines, that story is not credible. We had an alternative path that would have required the sharing of knowledge and expertise, and overriding patent rights. We did not go this path. Thus far, we have been very fortunate. No vaccine resistant strain has yet developed and spread widely.
Hopefully, the world's good luck in this respect will continue, as we vaccinate the developing world, however slowly. It is worth noting that even with the spread of the Delta variant, the number of new cases in former hotspots like India and Brazil, has fallen sharply in recent weeks. This is presumably the result of many people enjoying some immunity from previous infections, as well as increasing levels of vaccinations.
But we certainly can't take for granted that a vaccine resistant strain will not develop. And, if that happens, and we face the horror story of having to go through a whole new round of infections and shutdowns, the question is whether anyone will be held accountable?
My guess is that the answer will be no. (Who ended up unemployed because of the war in Iraq or the housing bubble?) The major media outlets will likely pretend that there was nothing that could have been done. They may acknowledge that we could have been somewhat quicker in getting out our vaccines to developing countries, but they will not acknowledge even the possibility that open-sourced technology could have sped up the production process for vaccines in both rich and developing countries. The idea that millions of people will needlessly die because our political leaders did not want to jeopardize the profits of the pharmaceutical industry is too horrible to be aired in places like the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio.
The long and short is that, in our high-tech globalized economy, accountability is only something that those at the bottom have to worry about. Dishwashers and truck drivers get fired when they mess up on the job. Top public health officials, and indeed the whole public health profession, are largely immune from this sort of accountability for infinitely bigger mess-ups.
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