Michael Avenatti, Andrew Cuomo, The Lincoln Project, and Anthony Fauci have enjoyed media adoration. At a certain point in history, each had regular access to the cameras of CNN and MSNBC, among others. The common thread is they willingly and forcibly attacked Donald Trump. Overlooking their feet of clay, opinion leaders in the media lauded their courage to take on the vile Trump. Avenatti and Cuomo each elicited talk of a Presidential Run. Portrayed as Republican stalwarts, the Lincoln Project members put honor above party loyalty in the media’s eyes.

Instead of awaiting his next appearance on CNN, Avenatti is looking forward to his sentencing for his felony conviction. He’s facing up to 40 yrs. Cuomo is still on T.V., but to explain why he put Covid infected patients back in nursing homes and then covered it up. A far cry from his Emmy-winning Covid updates. Beyond concealing one of its key members’ perversions, everyone wants to know where the Lincoln Project’s money went. Were they washed-up grifters looking for a big payday? The media never asked. 

People are probably shocked at the inclusion of the near-sainted Dr. Fauci in this infamous group. After all, isn’t the good Doctor the embodiment of “Science.” in this pandemic? The media has undoubtedly made this a bedrock of its reporting. Readers of this blog, especially the series on COVID-19, know I don’t share this adoration. 

The permanent medical bureaucracy charged with protecting us from epidemics early on dropped the ball when COVID-19 made its debut in China. They never pushed to into Wuhan to obtain the facts. The World Health Organization(WHO) hadn’t sounded the alarm. The likes of the C.D.C., F.D.A., and Dr. Fauci instead downplayed the risk. On February 29, 2020, Dr. Fauci informed us, “No need to change lifestyle ,yet.” When Pres.Trump banned flights from China in Jan. 2020, these medical experts opposed the move.

Only after the publication of the Imperial College’s model prediction of millions of Covid deaths in the U.S. did these worthies do a 180 to locking down the country. As cases appeared, we found shortages of P.P.E. The Bureaucrats bungled our testing to a degree we haven’t yet fully caught up. Those charged protecting us failed miserably. You don’t have to take my word for it. Take a look at Former Deputy National Security Advisor Matt Pottenger on CBS’s Face the Nation. He details the failures of WHO and our bureaucracies. 

Faced with the specter of overflowing hospitals as seen in Italy, President Trump recommended the lockdown to “flatten the curve.” Initially, this economy-crushing move was to keep the hospitals functioning. The President saw the nation immediately go from the height of prosperity to the depths of a recession.  

Right from the start, the lockdown was questioned. In my March 20 post, I raised questions about the Imperial College Model and the extreme response. After all, the virus was mainly deadly to people over 65 and those with particular conditions. To the younger, healthier population, it was akin to, at worst seasonal flu. Young children were basically unaffected. We had data from China, Italy, and other places. It was right then and never changed. This pointed to a more targeted approach. 

Many top scientists came to the realization you can’t quarantine an entire nation for a lengthy period. At best, you’re only postponing the virus’s spread at a horrible cost. Better to make a supreme effort to protect the vulnerable and let life go on for the rest. Had we known of the virus facts sooner, maybe we could’ve closed our borders and used aggressive testing to limit the spread. The dropped ball by the medical bureaucracy from the start precluded this route.

This presented a challenge to our medical bureaucrats. You can’t understand how we got to the lockdowns without realizing the massive failures leading up to them. Getting his information from the bureaucracy, Pres. Trump initially supported the lockdown. Still, he knew getting back to something resembling normal was essential. Having been told one thing one day about the virus, only to be told the opposite later had to make the President suspicious. Being whiplashed by his medical community’s advice undermined his credibility. 

The bureaucrats took the only course available to preserve their position; they blamed Trump. If the President wanted to end the lockdowns, he wasn’t following the “science.” Democrat-led states favored extended lockdowns. New York was touted as a Covid containment model, with Joe Biden referring to it as the “Gold Standard.” On July 20, Anthony Fauci was asked by the press what the proper Covid response policy would look like. He answered, “We know that, when you do it properly, you bring down those cases. We have done it. We have done it in New York.”

The Trump loathing media backed the medical and Democratic officials by criticizing the President as anti-science. Donald Trump isn’t as articulate as we would wish our presidents to be. This left him vulnerable. A logical push for treatments for the virus became a search for “snake oil.” Opining the virus eventually would go away was mocked mercilessly. 

This allowed for the narrative of Trump was solely to blame for our inadequate Covid response. The media repeated the story-line endlessly. It probably cost Trump the Presidency.

Still, you can’t cover up the truth forever. Some people look at the facts and act accordingly. While Democrat-run states such as New York and California stayed shut down, ominously including their schools, Republican Florida did the opposite. This set up unavoidable comparisons.

The scientists who warned against extended strict lockdowns continued to make their points. They cited the simple fact epidemics go away when we reach “Herd immunity.” This means when enough of us become immune, the pathogen paths to spreading become blocked. We get this either by enough people surviving the infection, vaccines, or a combination of the two. Aware of this straightforward truth, the Trump Administration early-on started Operation Warp Speed to bring us vaccines ASAP. Armed with cash and support to push through regulations safely but fast, the race was on.

No one knew how long it would take to naturally reach “Herd immunity.” The quickest we ever got vaccine was four years for mumps. Basic logic dictated allowing spread among the less at risk while doing the utmost to protect the genuinely vulnerable. Keeping kids out of school and businesses closed would mean irreparable harm. President Trump realized he was getting only narrow and possibly self-serving advice from his Coronavirus Task force. To get a broader perspective, he added Dr. Scott Atlas as a special advisor. A Medical Policy expert from the Hoover Institution, he provided the cost-benefit analysis that had been lacking. 

By his own admission, the immunologist, Dr. Fauci, knew nothing about the situation’s economics. None of the Covid task force members could speak to the effects of lockdowns on the populace, especially the children. Dr. Atlas filled the gap by tirelessly campaigning for schools to open, better protections for the at-risk,and reopening before the damage became irreparable. He received support from a large part of the scientific community, culminating in “The Great Barrington Declaration.” Like Dr. Atlas, the thousands of signatories opposed the lockdowns while pushing more resources to protect the vulnerable. Understanding “Herd Immunity,” they called for anything to get us there quicker.

For their trouble, Dr. Atlas and the Declaration signatories were treated to ridicule by much of the media. Dr. Fauci told A.B.C. News that an anti-lockdown declaration being considered by the White House — which advocates using “herd immunity” acquired through infection to control the pandemic — is “ridiculous,” “total nonsense,” and “will lead to hospitalizations and deaths.” Strangely, Fauci and his allies claimed to be following the “Science.” Stories were planted in the press deriding the opposition.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis did the best job of following the Declaration’s concepts, resulting in uniform lousy press. How dare he open schools and businesses. Unlike Gov. Cuomo in New York, he will kill people.

The day of reckoning is upon us. First, the school closure crisis has exposed the lock-downers’ harm to our children. Those who followed Dr. Atlas and Trump’s advice saved their children from a life-altering educational loss. Those under the thumb of Democrat-supported teacher’s unions haven’t fared well at all. People are asking why? The lock-downers have no answers.

Next, the direct New York-Florida comparison has shown which state took the right path. Florida, with its schools and businesses open, is flourishing. New York City looks like a ghost town. New Yorkers are moving to Florida at an alarming rate. Instead of the predicted much worse virus outcomes, Florida has better results. This is especially true when one considers that Floridians are much older therefore more at risk. The states are relatively close in population. Still, Florida has far fewer deaths than New York.  

Finally, as I noted, the pandemic topped out on January 11. Before the vaccines had any chance to kick in or Biden was inaugurated, the virus was in retreat. Our tables from Johns Hopkins tell us all:

  

Nothing besides the beginning of “Herd Immunity” explains the sudden drop in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Johns Hopkins’ Dr. Marty Makary predicts, “we’ll have herd Immunity by April.” It will be the result of natural immunity combined with the rapid rate of this nation’s vaccinations. 

With nothing to show for the excessive lockdowns but ruined businesses and uneducated children, those forced to follow the medical bureaucracy’s dictates have to be asking questions. Some have already come to their own conclusions as they drive their U-Hauls out of the restrictive Blue states. As the truth becomes apparent, people will want answers.

Dr. Fauci tells Americans our nation did a terrible job with the pandemic. Actually, our data looks a lot like that of a similarly populated European Union (E.U.). We are far ahead of the E.U. in vaccinating people. But if we had failings, whose fault was that? Dr. Fauci was the frontman for the bureaucratic band. When Fauci played down the pandemic, top people such as Dr. Makary were sounding the alarm.

The Biden administration has curiously seen fit to retain Dr. Fauci as its Covid face. A man who got little right over the past year is seen by the media as close to sainthood. Basically, this was because he was seen as a counterpoint to the hated Trump. Now they’re stuck with him.

Dr. Fauci is repaying his new masters by carrying water for the new administration. With good news on the pandemic abounding, the Doctor has been relentlessly downbeat. Normalcy won’t return till, at best, the end of the year. We’ll have to wear masks well into 2022. Passing Biden’s $1.9 trillion Covid relief is mandatory so the schools could finally reopen.

The lines are drawn. Biden ran on the media-supported narrative the Trump administration totally blew our Covid response. Only by electing Joe Biden will get us back to normal. Dr. Fauci is the face on this portrait.  

If Dr. Makary is correct, we’ll have Herd Immunity accompanied by a booming economy freeing us by April. None of this success can be attributed to the Biden Administration.  Even Fauci’s boss at the Natioal Institute of Health credits this Warp Speed miracle to the Trump administration. No matter how hard the Biden Administration and its media allies will deny it, the Trump administration left us in pretty good shape. Facts are facts.

The man who told us not to wear masks, maybe wear masks, you must wear masks, wear two masks, and wear them well into 2022 will be unmasked. Dr. Fauci exemplifies Lawrence J. Peter’s “Peter Principle. In his book of that name, Peter pointed out people in large organizations rise past their competence level. Hopefully, the good Doctor will return to the NIH. and do good work in his area of competence, immunology. His venture into running a national economy in a pandemic was beyond his talents—the failure to realize this did great harm.