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Tony Fauci is back in the news. One thing few people know about Fauci, when he says he knows medicine, he's definitely right. He's been around for a long time. Tony Fauci graduated from medical school almost sixty years ago. He's 81. That means he's three years older than the average life expectancy of an American man. It means he's 16 years past the age at which the average physician in this country retires. 

We're not calling Tony Fauci old, but at this point, he's probably not buying any long-term municipal bonds. If you were his investment adviser, you'd tell him to day trade. Yet, Tony Fauci is still working. In fact, he's one of the longest-serving employees in the entire federal government. He's almost certainly the highest-paid. Why is that? Because Tony Fauci is that good. The term "national treasure" comes to mind.  

Decent people understand that. Drive through any neighborhood with high concentrations of college-educated professionals with desperately unhappy personal lives and you will see the yard signs shrines erected in Fauci's honor. "Thank you, Dr. Fauci!" they read, capped with a perky little exclamation point with a heart at the bottom, "Thank you for being you."

And you can actually understand their gratitude. Fauci is the man who got us through the pandemic as the coronavirus wafted from a Chinese military biolab in Wuhan and settled over the United States. Tony Fauci was the man Americans look to for guidance. He was our Sherpa, our diminutive spirit guide. "Do these masks actually work?" we wondered. "No, they don't," Dr. Fauci replied firmly. 

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Anthony Fauci at White House, COVID response team

Dr. Anthony Fauci, White House Chief Medical Advisor and Director of the NIAID, participates in the White House COVID-19 Response Team's regular call with the National Governors Association in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus, Monday, Dec. 27, 2021, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

"There's no reason to be walking around with a mask," he told "60 Minutes" in March of 2020, but that turned out to be not quite accurate. In fact, there was a reason to walk around in a mask, but it had nothing to do with public health. The experience of being forcibly masked was so unpleasant and so humiliating it distracted you from other questions, such as "Where did this virus come from anyway?" 

As someone who had helped fund the development of COVID with your tax dollars, Fauci was strongly in favor of you being distracted, so he soon changed the guidance. He upped it soon. Soon Fauci was demanding that we mask up, including outdoors and exercising, even alone in your car, and so we did.  

By January of 2021, even that guidance had proved to be inadequate because people are still persistently asking, "Where the hell this virus come from?" So, Fauci had go further. He declared that Americans must wear two masks, one on top of the other, with no air holes to breathe. This, he said, was "common sense," so a lot of people did it. But Fauci didn't rest there. By December of 2020, he had checked with science and concluded that actually one of the main risk factors for COVID-19 was your family's ancient religious observances. Those are the real problem, so Tony Fauci went on NBC News to cancel Christmas. 

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VOICEOVER: A warning and a plea from Dr. Anthony Fauci.  

ANDREA MITCHELL, MSNBC: Should people now cancel their Travel plans for Christmas?  

FAUCI: To the extent possible, don't travel, don't congregate together.  

That was a tough one for a lot of people, even the double-masked ones. Americans love Christmas. They love their families. Many of them still love God, but Fauci had spoken. Science had spoken. No more Christmas. So, countless Americans spent Christmas morning alone. But still, it wasn't enough. In the end. Dr. Fauci looked around this country and saw people making human connections, experiencing warmth and intimacy with one another in the middle of a global pandemic. Talk about reckless.

So, Fauci stamped it out. "Going forward," he told us, "You must never shake hands with another human being. That is, if you don't want to die drowning in your own fluids in a COVID ward."  

QUESTION: Would you agree that drug and alcohol use increased during these lockdowns? 

FAUCI: Well, I'm not sure the lockdowns itself did it, and I'm wondering why you're asking me about lockdowns, because there were not complete lockdowns in this country. 

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Oh, there weren't complete lockdowns in this country. But in fact, there were. Most people obeyed, but not everyone. Some people persisted in shaking hands with one another or even celebrating Christmas. Others wore only a single mask and those people, we can report with mixed feelings, died, and they died alone because due to science, Tony Fauci prevented their loved ones from seeing them, from holding their hands in their final moments on Earth. But it was all necessary because there was a global pandemic.  

In the end, you will recall that Tony Fauci realized, as a scientist does sometimes, based on research, that only Big Pharma could save us. We couldn't do it ourselves. We are too weak and selfish. We needed Pfizer. The entire country was going to have to get the COVID shot, every one of us and anyone who refused would be crushed, yelled at, ostracized, fired. 

In the affluent neighborhoods, the place where people believe in science ("In this house, they believe in science’) places like Bethesda, Brooklyn and Aspen, the population gratefully complied, but in the rest of the country, there remained cells of ignorance and superstition where people resisted the vaccine. 

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Strangely, at the same time, many of these primitive people also had, somehow, high skilled, highly essential jobs, including in health care. They were nurses, they were EMTs, they were airline pilots and cops and Navy SEALs, but they were all summarily fired. Their careers and lives destroyed. But it wasn't sad. It was necessary because they were killing the rest of us. As Dr. Fauci told us, there were two things we needed to know about this pandemic of the unvaccinated and the COVID shot that could fix it. First was the vaccine absolutely prevents COVID infection. Watch.  

FAUCI: When people are vaccinated, they can feel safe that they are not going to get infected.  

"When people are vaccinated, they can feel safe, that they are not going to get infected." Simple, so take the shot and you're never getting COVID. Done. We'll get it. The second thing that Dr. Fauci told us was that Pfizer had made something far more impressive than your own body. Pfizer was smarter than nature. Natural immunity was a joke compared to the COVID vaccine.  

FAUCI: There may be the need for yet again another boost in this case, a fourth dose boost for an individual receiving the mRNA and then the issue of vaccines, actually, at least with regard to SARS-CoV-2, can do better than nature. You want to make sure people keep their masks on. I think the idea of taking masks off in my mind is really not something we should even be considering. It is, as we've said, a pandemic and an outbreak of the unvaccinated.  

"Vaccines can do better than nature. That's why this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated." That was Dr. Fauci's message and still his message, despite the fact that yesterday – and here's the news in the story – Dr. Fauci announced that he himself has been infected with the coronavirus. That's right.  

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Dr Anthony Fauci

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021, in Washington.  (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Dr. Fauci is COVID positive, despite double masking outside, despite skipping Christmas, despite his strict regimen of celibacy and no handshaking, despite four separate COVID vaccine shots. Dr. Fauci got sick anyway. Now, this seems like an important moment. What does it mean? Well, if you live in Bethesda and have a Fauci sign in your yard, you know exactly what it means. It means we need more vaccines. Pfizer is still the answer because Pfizer is always the answer.

Fauci delivered that message today without flinching.  

FAUCI: This virus is changing and we need to keep up with it. In order to do that, we've got to do better with new vaccine platforms such as nanoparticle vaccines. We cannot proceed with that unless we get additional funding. Importantly, we need to both prevent infection and transmission. We know that we cannot do that unless we get a highly effective, mucosal or intranasal vaccine.  

Okay, so testifying on the need for vaccines from isolation, having been infected after getting four of them. "We need to both prevent infection and transmission." 

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"But wait a second," said skeptics who don't live in Bethesda with Fauci yard signs, "Weren't the first four vaccine shots supposed to prevent infection transmission? Isn't that why you fired all those nurses and pilots and Navy SEALs? Shouldn't you acknowledge the lie you told for years and apologize to them, give them back their jobs with damages and grovel before them begging for forgiveness before you move on to yet another mandatory vaccine?" 

"And while we're at it," the skeptics pointed out, "Can you tell us, Dr. Fauci, how many Americans have been killed or seriously injured by the first shots that you mandated? Well, many thousands, we know that, but how many exactly? Is anyone even keeping track?" 

Researchers at the CDC, along with scientists at Emory, Vanderbilt and Duke, recently concluded the mRNA vaccine significantly increased the risk of potentially fatal heart damage in young men. So, Dr. Fauci, what exactly is the cost benefit analysis here on giving that vaccine to young men? Be specific.  

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Now, a normal bureaucrat would have withered under questions like that, but not Fauci. Fauci is a man of science. In fact, he is science, as he once explained. Science and Fauci are identical. You'll never see them together in the same room. There's a reason for that. So, Fauci didn't bend. He doubled down, pressing for the mass vaccination of all American children over five.

Watch here his bravery in the face of harassment from Rand Paul, who is also technically a doctor, but a skeptical one and therefore anti-science.

SEN. RAND PAUL: The government recommends everybody take a booster over age five. Are you aware of any studies that show a reduction in hospitalization or death for children who take a booster?  

FAUCI: Right now, there's not enough data that has been accumulated, Senator Paul, to indicate that that's the case.  

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RAND PAUL: There are no studies, and Americans should all know this, there are no studies on children showing a reduction in hospitalization or death with taking a booster. The only studies that were permitted, the only studies that were presented were antibody studies. So, they say, "If we give you a booster, you make antibodies." Now, a lot of scientists would question whether or not that's proof of efficacy of a vaccine. If I give you ten or if I give a patient 10 mRNA vaccines and they make protein each time or they make antibody each time, is that proof that we should give ten boosters, Dr. Fauci? 

FAUCI: No, I think that is somewhat of an absurd exaggeration.  

Notice the brilliant facility with language here. Dr. Fauci doesn't actually answer the question. Instead, he dismisses it out of hand in a very scientific way as "absurd." That's how a scientist talks. Questions about efficacy, whether the drugs you prescribe actually work, mean nothing compared to questions about federal funding. Federal funding is what matters to a scientist. 

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In fact, federal funding was the whole point of Fauci's testimony today. He was there to let Congress know that as a man who's been vaccinated four times and still got COVID, he can tell you firsthand, we're never going to beat COVID without more vaccines and to get that vaccine, we're going to send billions more tax dollars to Tony Fauci. There's no way around it. It's science.

But still, Rand Paul clearly more a witch doctor than a physician, wasn't fully convinced. "Where's all this money going?" Rand Paul asked, "Are you getting any of it?" Watch Dr. Fauci's brilliance on display as he answers that question.  

RAND PAUL: Over the period of time from 2010 to 2016, 27,000 royalty payments were paid to 1,800 NIH employees. We know that not because you told us, but because we forced you to tell us through the Freedom of Information Act. Over $193 million was given to these...1,800 employees. Can you tell me that you have not received a royalty from any entity that you ever oversaw the distribution of money in research grants?  

FAUCI: Well, first of all, let's talk about royalty.  

RAND PAUL: No, that's the question. Have you ever overseen, Have you ever received a royalty payment from a company that you later oversaw money going to that company?  

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FAUCI: You know, I don't know as a fact. 

"Are you getting rich from these vaccines?" Rand Paul asked. Fauci's reply: "You know, I don't know as a fact." 

"You know. I don't know is a fact." Now, what does that mean? "You know, I don't know as a fact." Well, honestly, we don't know what that means. No one knows what that means. It is impenetrable, like a Zen cone. It's the sound of one hand clapping and that's why it's brilliant. In any case, we are getting new vaccines, of course, we are, whether Tony Fauci is profiting personally from them or no.  

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It really doesn't matter, though, as his fans, we hope he is, and of course, the vaccine makers will need another dose of legal immunity in the extremely unlikely event their experimental drugs were to kill thousands more Americans whose deaths are then covered up and forgotten. That's just common sense, as Dr. Fauci would say. Another round of shots for everyone. We've got to beat this pandemic.

Now, we haven't seen polls on it yet, but there's no question Americans are going to be thrilled by this news when they hear it. We reached out to Justin Bieber tonight for comment, but unfortunately, his face is paralyzed, so he couldn't respond. We'll tell you when he gets back to us.