Anthony “Dr. Doom” Fauci, the man who you could technically consider the main villain during the coronavirus pandemic, actually acknowledged and confessed that shutting down schools for months at the height of the pandemic was a “mistake,” which is a huge reversal in stance from the former presidential chief medical adviser who was the main influence on how our country responded to the spread of the illness.
Honestly, this is pretty significant. Fauci is a man who is known for having a massive ego. Just go back and look at his interviews at the time. It’s clear he loved being in the spotlight. He really ate up all the attention and how people in the media fawned for him and treated him as if he were some sort of messiah figure. It was honestly pretty disturbing for those of us who had eyes to see what was happening.
via The Daily Wire:
Fauci, 83, was one of the lead members of both the Trump and Biden administrations’ White House COVID teams and frequently appeared beside former President Donald Trump at briefings. The immunologist also led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases during the first two years of the pandemic.
Fauci made the admission during an interview on CBS Mornings, saying that while the initial school closures were the right decision, keeping kids out of the classroom for so long was a mistake.
“I think what was not a mistake was the actual closure, because when we had a shutdown that 15 day to flatten the curve, we were in a tsunami of cases. Right here in New York, you had freezer trucks in front of Elmhurst Hospital,” Fauci remarked.
He then went on to say that “shutting down everything immediately…even schools was the right thing.”
No.
It wasn’t.
“How long you kept it was the problem because there was a disparity throughout the country,” he added.
Fauci also defended his own record, saying he urged states and counties to “close the bars, open the schools, open the schools as quickly and as safely as you possibly can.”
“But initially to close it down was correct,” he stated during the interview. “Keeping it for a year was not a good idea.”
“So that was a mistake in retrospect? We will not repeat it?” the CBS anchor then asked Fauci.
“Absolutely, yeah,” Fauci replied.
What’s hilarious is Fauci had once warned the country that shutting down schools for long periods, including months, could potentially be necessary. My how the turn tables, am I right?
.@JudyWoodruff: Are we looking at many months of virtual learning before schools can safely open nationwide?
Dr. Anthony Fauci: "In some places, Judy, that may be the case." pic.twitter.com/fVgss0y4ol
— PBS News (@NewsHour) August 13, 2020
8/4/20 Fauci on schools:
"There may be some areas where the level of virus is so high that it would not be prudent to bring children back to school."
In clip, he endorses Zoom education & school closures in areas w/ COVID transmission. Fauci has never been for full reopening. pic.twitter.com/eORstr2Lf8
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) November 30, 2020
In August 2020, Fauci was asked by PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff whether the country was facing “many months of virtual learning” before schools could safely open nationwide.
“In some places, Judy, that may be the case,” Fauci stated at the time. “If you want your schools to open, get your community level down, down to a safe level.”
That same month, Dr. Doom as I like to call him, said, “There may be some areas that the level of the virus is so high that it would not be prudent to bring the children back to school.”
A lot of negative consequences came about as a result of closing down schools for an extended period of time, including a massive learning loss for kids in kindergarten all the way up to their senior year in high school.
In 2022, eighth graders had the lowest U.S. history scores on record and among the lowest civics scores, according to the Department of Education. Only about 13% of eighth graders met proficiency standards for U.S. history last year, and only about a fifth of students were proficient or better in civics.
Math and reading scores have also suffered over the pandemic, according to the department. Math scores plummeted among fourth and eighth graders in almost every state, and reading scores have also sunk across the country, erasing the last three decades of progress.
Shockingly, there has been a large number of students who returned to classrooms last year that were still reading at the same level they were before the pandemic struck, which resulted in these kids being two grade levels behind.