Trump's Top Coronavirus Expert: The President Is Full of Shit

[babylonsister]

No, he didn't actually say that; he inferred it.

Levin Report
Trump’s Top Coronavirus Expert: The President Is Full of Shit
According to Dr. Anthony Fauci, nearly everything the president has said about the coronavirus is wrong.

By Bess Levin
March 11, 2020


Something you may have noticed over the last three years is that Donald Trump’s body apparently requires a certain amount of lies per minute to function, in the same way that normal human bodies require oxygen. Oftentimes these lies are dumb and meaningless, like when he claimed Ivanka created 14 million jobs or that he had a shot with Princess Diana. Other times, they’re significantly more dangerous like, say, when every other word out of his mouth re: a pandemic that has killed over 4,000 people bears little resemblance to the truth. While the president is used to his loyal footstools repeating such lies for fear of offending him, on Wednesday, a member of his coronavirus task force apparently had enough.

Speaking to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, noted that attempts to downplay how lethal the disease is by comparing it to the flu—which the president did just two days ago—are wildly misguided. “I mean, people always say, ‘Well, the flu does this, the flu does that,’” Fauci said. “The flu has a mortality of 0.1%. This has a mortality of 10 times that. That’s the reason I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.”

Link to tweet

Naturally, Trump’s attempt to use the flu to somehow prove the novel coronavirus isn’t so bad have involved false stats, like that the mortality rate for the flu is “much higher than” COVID-19, and easily debunked lies like that a vaccine is just around the corner. (“It’s a little like the regular flu that we have flu shots for,” he said two weeks ago. “And we’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner.”) While Fauci has repeatedly countered that the actual expected timetable is 12 to 18 months, on Wednesday he was more blunt in shutting down Trump’s fantasy timeline. “No,” he said when asked if there was any merit to the president’s assertion that a vaccine might be ready in just a few months. “I made myself very clear in my opening statement.” Elsewhere, Fauci, who has served under six presidents, generally took aim at Trump’s assertion that everything is fine and that the virus will just “go away” on its own. Asked if the worst is yet to come, he responded unequivocally, “Yes, yes it is.”

more...

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/anthony-fauci-donald-trump-coronavirus-claims?fbclid=IwAR3g_RGPldIAKdtYQRxNGgbt6LfCw4ANbnm19_-ptvfPpxQllmpM4bTtzGk

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Dr. Fauci's days as a government employee are numbered.

[2naSalit]

2. On the outside

he could probably have more freedom to organize serious facilities and get more done.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. And he could tell the public what kind of heinous fuckery is happening on the inside.

[2naSalit]

7. And that too. ...nt

[GopherGal]

5. Dr. Fauci is 79, according to Wikipedia

and has been head of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Disease for over 35 years.
He's not likely to be in such desperate need of the paycheck that he'll agree with whatever Donnie says, no matter the damage to his credibility.

On the other hand, yes, to keep that job for that long and keep his reputation for that long, he has to be able to balance the science with a certain amount of diplomacy.

[RockRaven]

3. A lot of respect for Dr. Fauci speaking the unvarnished truth, knowing Trump will fire him some day

for doing so (whilst using him as a scape-goat for Trump's own failures).

[magicarpet]

6. Aw-Oh,... trDump will have Dr. Fauci reassigned to WalterReed to change bed pans.

No one disses the Orange King.