Eristalis
The downvotes are par for the course, if I was interested in a popularity contest I wouldn't have commented on a thread about Fauci!
You're right on lockdowns. The jury is out, but most seem to think them a mistake, or mistakenly applied.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0261759
According to our estimates, the policy intervention saved 866,350–1,711,150 lives (4,886,214–9,650,886 quality-adjusted life-years), while mortality attributable to the economic downturn was 57,922–245,055 lives (2,093,811–8,858,444 life-years). We conclude that the number of lives saved by the spring-summer lockdowns and other COVID-19-mitigation was greater than the number of lives potentially lost due to the economic downturn. However, the net impact on quality-adjusted life expectancy is ambiguous
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/15/9295
The comparative analysis of different countries showed that the assumption of lockdowns’ effectiveness cannot be supported by evidence—neither regarding the present COVID-19 pandemic, nor regarding the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and other less-severe pandemics in the past. The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save. It is suggested therefore that a thorough cost-benefit analysis should be performed before imposing any lockdown for either COVID-19 or any future pandemic.
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/public-health/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.625778/full
a cost-benefit analysis of the response to COVID-19 finds that lockdowns are far more harmful to public health (at least 5–10 times so in terms of wellbeing years) than COVID-19 can be.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3782395
Biomedical evidence from the early months of the pandemic suggests that lockdowns were associated with a reduced viral reproductive rate, but that less restrictive measures also had a similar effect. Lockdowns are associated with reduced mortality in epidemiological modelling studies but not in studies based on empirical data from the Covid-19 pandemic. Psychological research supports the proposition that lengthy lockdowns may exacerbate stressors such as social isolation and unemployment that have been shown to be strong predictors of falling ill if exposed to a respiratory virus. Studies at the economic level of analysis points to the possibility that deaths associated with economic harms or underfunding of other health issues may outweigh the deaths that lockdowns save, and that the extremely high financial cost of lockdowns may have negative implications for overall population health in terms of diminished resources for treating other conditions.
Good point. Give me an example of critical thinking then.
Let's use the exact topic as a springboard seeing as we're on it.
Proposition A: A nurse complains about how horrible her experience of Covid was because of all the death and suffering... Conclusion B: So no-one should criticise Dr Fauci.
Talk me through the critical thinking that makes proposition A lead to conclusion B.
Or, with Covid itself...
Proposition: A government spokesman says I ought do X to prevent a virus from spreading. Conclusion: therefore I ought to do X
Talk me through the application of 'critical thinking skills' in that analysis.
I suspect we might be talking at cross purposes, as you may be using the new meaning of 'critical thinking', which is roughly 'beleive everything The Atlantic tells me'.
Sure. But there are also some scientists who think the lockdown didn't work, or only work really fast and hard. Or only work in dense populations but are useless in sparse ones. The Democrats don't have a monopoly on truth, they're not omniscient. They just had a different idea of how they wanted to respond based (like every other politician) on what they thought would sell well to their electorate.
Who knows what they word have actually done in power. I hate to break it to you, but politicians lie - it's kind of their job.
I think a lot of it came from the impact of social media algorithms driving people into increasingly polarised groups such that to prove you weren't in 'their' group you had to fervently believe the exact opposite of everything 'they' believed.
Politicians, being politicians, jumped on that and pinned their flags to one group or the other. Meanwhile, health institutions and scientists, not, as you say, magically immune from the influences the rest of us are under, did the same.
But my point is really that they all still just did their job under those circumstances. Not as saints, not as evil masterminds, but as biased, ideologically-blinded, rash, stressed-out, fucked-up, and disillusioned ordinary people. Just like the rest of us.
And some of the ideas coming out of that are going to be fine, some are going to be harmless but annoying, and a few are going to be properly crap. That's how the world is.
What's crazy is seeing everything as black and white.
And on your last point. Scientists did come out and question many of Fauci's policies. They were removed from social media and in many cases fired.
It's easy to claim majority support when you silence opposing voices.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11024-022-09479-4
Exactly. That's his job and he did it. That's it.
As to the obfuscation. He went on the Newt Gingrich podcast and said the idea of a lab origin was a conspiracy theory without any scientific basis eight days after a meeting he had with top scientists at which the majority were of the opinion that it probably was. In what way is that 'not stating something as fact when it's uncertain'?
He'd just come from a meeting where he'd been told it was uncertain, and he stated publicly that believing it amounted to conspiracy theory.
I can't understand why people defend the man. I can't understand why anyone would particularly hate him either. He's just a normal political appointee.
Politicians trying to make appointees look bad is standard practice. David Kelly was literally driven to suicide by the pressure to relent over Iraq.