The reason why this is so revealing is that for nearly two years now, we’ve been told we have to “trust the science.” Every time somebody has argued that we cannot be so myopically focused on Covid, and we have to balance our interest in Covid mitigation against the harm and disruption to people’s lives caused by draconian guidance, they have been attacked as being anti-science, and even as participants of a death cult. But in his answer, Fauci is arguing that it’s prudent to match our Covid mitigation practices to with practical concerns. This is what we should have been doing all along.

This should be an eye-opening moment for those who treated the public health community as all-knowing and deferred to them at every twist and turn. It would be a good opportunity to now ignore CDC’s other arbitrary and destructive guidance, starting with masking in schools.