This is why it’s a tautology for Fauci’s critics to say that he’s focused on the disease above all other considerations. This is like saying the Commerce secretary is too consumed with finding business opportunities for American companies or the head of the Joint Special Operations Command has an unhealthy obsession with killing terrorists. What else are they supposed to do?

As a breed, epidemiologists tend to be focused on the worst case. They don’t want to be wrong and contribute to some deadly pathogen getting loose when their entire job is to keep that from happening. So they are naturally cautious. This, too, is as it should be. You probably don’t want a risk-taking epidemiologist anymore than you want a highly creative, envelope-pushing accountant…

If Trump were under the control of Fauci he wouldn’t have made repeated pitches from the White House podium for hydroxychloroquine, touted rosy scenarios for the course of the pandemic, or made his champing-at-the-bit eagerness to reopen so obvious.