I’m beginning to think that the public health experts don’t want us to get back to normal at all.
Last week, I got the COVID-19 vaccine, not because I’m worried about catching the coronavirus as a 20-something, but because I want to do my part to stop the spread of the virus to those who are most susceptible.
I also got the vaccine because I don’t want politicians and public health officials to have any more reasons to keep the economy closed.
And yet, despite myriad trials demonstrating the efficacy and safety of the Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, we keep hearing from Dr. Anthony Fauci that getting vaccinated doesn’t mean squat.
Fauci is at it again. “It’s still not ok for vaccinated Americans to eat and drink indoors.” pic.twitter.com/yWHTnRN18f
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) April 12, 2021
Appearing on MSNBC on Sunday, Fauci said that people who are vaccinated still shouldn’t eat inside restaurants, drink inside bars, or entertain even the slightest glimmer of hope for the future. OK, so I made that last bit up. But it’s not too much of a stretch.
Infection rates are still “disturbingly high,” Fauci warns, even though the daily number of new infections is down dramatically from this January. On Sunday, the number of new national cases was 48,147. Three months before, it was 223,028. The average daily infection rate has now plummeted roughly 72% from its peak.
Wow, it’s almost as if vaccines actually work.
“If you are vaccinated, please remember that you still have to be careful and not get involved in crowded situations, particularly indoors where people are not wearing masks,” Fauci said. “And for the time being, until we show definitively that a person who has been vaccinated does not get this subclinical infection and can spread to others, you should also continue to wear a mask for the time being.”
Fauci is right that it’s still unclear just how helpful the COVID-19 vaccines are in safeguarding the health of other people. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “scientists are still learning how well vaccines prevent you from spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 to others.” However, early data “show the vaccines do help keep people with no symptoms from spreading COVID-19, but we are learning more as more people get vaccinated.”
On top of that, the CDC reports that “population immunity makes it hard for the disease to spread from person to person.” Fauci has admitted he doesn’t know how many people need to be vaccinated for herd immunity, but with 40% of U.S. adults at least partially vaccinated and millions more getting vaccinated each day, we’ve got to be approaching that level soon.
What Fauci should be doing is spreading hope to a beleaguered public that the pandemic will be over quickly, and that one way to make that happen is to get vaccinated. Instead, he’s on the media circuit spreading the doom-and-gloom message that vaccinated people, to quote the Horton Hears a Who! movie, should “stop having fun immediately!”
And who knows if Fauci is even telling the truth. He has admitted to lying to the public before; in December, he told the New York Times that he had been misleading us about what percentage of the population would need to be vaccinated to reach herd immunity because he decided the country wasn’t ready to hear it.
If I believed Fauci’s vaccine skepticism, I wouldn’t have gotten the COVID-19 vaccine. I had to scour the web for an appointment, wait in line for an hour, and suffer body aches and chills for 24 hours after getting my shot. That’s a small price to pay for getting the United States back to normal. But if we’re still supposed to “stay home, stay safe,” then why bother?
