Dr. Anthony Fauci’s COVID legacy is a failure, in part due to his own insistence that skepticism of the infectious disease expert was anyone’s fault but his own, according to a New York Times guest essay.
While things like misinformation, former President Trump’s personal "vendetta," and a broken media environment all dealt a hand in many Americans turning on Fauci, such an answer is also "partial" and "simplistic," Ari Schulman wrote.
Schulman ran through a number of Fauci's walk-backs, including his call to mask up weeks after urging against it and his decision to label the lab leak theory "fringe." Earlier this year, Fauci told Americans they were "out of the pandemic phase," before backtracking on the statement the next day. Fauci, who is stepping down at the end of the year from government service, became the face of the COVID-19 response in 2020 and a media darling.
"Might Americans have mistrusted Dr. Fauci not only because of nefarious political forces but also because he gave them reason to believe that something was amiss in the citadels of science?" Schulman wondered.
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The piece also called on Fauci and the public to own and aknowledge his "terrible failures" along with his "triumphs." Furthermore, the essay knocked Fauci for his claims that criticism of him were also direct attacks on science itself, asserting that such a position "obscured" the political considerations that drive public health guidance in the U.S.
"It was this that became so destructive to trust: the idea that science is a force that demands things of the public yet relieves leaders of accountability," Schulman wrote.
Schulman concluded that the "follow the science" motto became a "failure to lead," and a means to shift responsibility from the government and school boards onto the public.
"The public health establishment will not be able to do better than this without real soul-searching. And that will require swallowing a bitter pill: labeling Dr. Fauci’s COVID legacy and the approach it embodied a failure," she added.
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Fauci announced recently that he will step down as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and as President Biden's chief medical adviser in December. He clarified that he will not be retiring and is instead ready to "pursue the next chapter" in his career.
During an appearance last week on CNN’s "New Day," Fauci insisted that Republicans lawmakers’ promise to investigate him for his role in the coronavirus pandemic had nothing to do with the decision to leave his post.
"Really, none at all. Not even a slight amount. I have nothing to hide. And I can defend everything I’ve done. So that doesn’t phase me or bother me. My decisions of stepping down go back well over a year," Fauci said.
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