I have made no secret about my respect for Tony, who I was fortunate to train with for a brief time 40 years ago. Despite this, I think the current controversy surrounding him was the unfortunate result of several errors he made. One of the biggest was probably taking advice from people like Drs. Bob Redfield and Debbie Birx.
Recently, Dr. Fauci had a final sit-down with Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation” where he talked about his retirement and revealed several issues he believes remain important. These weren’t labelled as regrets, but they did seem to fall in that category.
Not surprisingly, Dr. Fauci came out strongly for wearing masks to contain not just COVID-19, but Flu and RSV infections. These respiratory illnesses are currently hammering the country and starting to overwhelm children’s hospitals, so this makes sense. It contrasts with his early call in the COVID-19 pandemic agains masks, which was an admitted mistake.
He also argued against lock-downs, mainly in the context of China. He now says they are only useful as a bridge to another approach (vaccines, drugs). It almost sounds as if he is advocating for the Great Barrington Declaration! Protecting the most vulnerable is an important issue since almost all of the current deaths from COVID-19 are in the elderly, and we have recently failed in protecting them by not aggressively targeting drugs and vaccines to these individuals.
Finally, almost remarkably, he suggested keeping an “open mind” about the lab leak theory of how the pandemic began. This was related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s possible involvement in accidentally altering or releasing SARS-CoV-2. I have written several times since early 2020 on the need to examine this issue, but our government continues to be reluctant.
Importantly, despite raising this issue, Dr. Fauci’s NIAID (NIH) is again funding Peter Daszak and his EcoHealth Alliance, which has been central to potential Lab Leak concerns in Wuhan, as well as having documented interest in virus enhancement. The grant is on bat coronavirus surveillance, so it is certainly relevant to the concerns about this organization.
Maybe Dr. Fauci’s greatest legacy would be to launch a true, independent investigation into this topic!
Pandemic Pondering 
Communicating with Drs. Redfield and Birx was not an error at all! Tony was part of a team and he knows and respects exactly what that means. He had to have open ears to what Birx and Redfield had to say as they were ultimately in roles tightly linked to the pandemic. Tony is respectful and was not going to go astray, even though he might not have been in full agreement with them.
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Impossible situation for sure.
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Doc: As someone who respects your opinion, this is another example of your guidance.
Best, Greg
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It is nice to see re-thinking (capitulation?) on the Great Barrington Declaration, Lockdowns, Wuhan gain of function and lab release. It is unfortunate that intelligent, thoughtful people were marginalized at a time when an open mind would have been beneficial to society.
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