He then justified his harsh COVID guidance, including pushing the federal government to mandate lockdowns, masking, and later, vaccination, because hospitals were being “overrun.”
“Of course, when you make recommendations, if the primary goal when you’re dealing with a situation where the hospitals were being overrun in New York, intensive care units were being put in hallways, you have to do something that’s rather draconian,” the doctor admitted.
He continued, “And sometimes when you do draconian things, it has collateral negative consequences, just like when you shut things down, even temporarily, it does have deleterious consequences on the economy, on the schoolchildren. You know that.”
Fauci confirmed he risked these harms, adding, “But you have to make a balance when you’re dealing with — we know the only way to stop something cold in its track is to try and shut things down.”
“If you shut things down just for the sake of it, that’s bad,” he said, adding, “But if you do it with the purpose of being able to regroup so that you can then open up in a more safe way, that’s the best way to do it.”
[So why continue to lock schools down after June 2020 — when all the science showed that children were not at risk and fully operating schools were not vectors for increased community transmission? — Ed]
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