There are many commentaries out there about the dramatic loss of trust average Americans have in public health institutions. Dr. Anthony Fauci is not responsible for all of it, of course. But as the face of the industry, this kind of thing being said on yesterday sure doesn't help:
It's never been an issue of making mistakes. Among the general public there was a great deal of latitude and patience given to public health officials in the early days of the pandemic. So little was known or understood about the Covid virus that the vast majority of people willfully trusted the experts to guide us through, even as we understood there would be mistakes.
We now know many of those mistakes, and we know how plentiful they were. From the origins of the disease, to its potency, to its transmissibility, to the most vulnerable demographics, to the efficacy of mitigation tactics like lockdowns and masks, and eventually "vaccines," virtually every "fact" that was shared and disseminated thoroughly by compliant media sources proved to be questionable at best, completely wrong at worst.
An open admission of those mistakes, and consequences for those who peddled them even after knowing how false they were, would likely have been enough to restore at least some level of confidence in the public perception of the "medical community" at large. (Important note: I am not speaking of family doctors and nurses who themselves were often kept in the dark and given misleading information; this is about the political agents in lab coats issues public health orders with the gun of government for enforcement)
Instead of repentance, embarrassed health officials doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their errors, silenced and censored whistleblowers, fact-checkers, and resisting voices. They erroneously labeled them as spreaders of "misinformation," a textbook case of the proverbial pot cursing at the kettle.
What's worse, they are still peddling the same specious suggestions – from useless mask-mandates to school closures to even the Washington Post's tacit defense of authoritarian zero-Covid lockdown measures like those happening in China.
On the one hand, it might be reasonable to suggest that it's worthwhile to let these voices continue to torch their own credibility. Let them be the arsonists, sending their own institutions up in the smoke of willful deceit. The only problem is that the consequence of their belligerent misinformation is continuing to ruin lives.
I don't know who California-based screenwriter Jessica Ellis is, but if you can, read through this remarkably sad thread of her recent bout with Covid, and realize it is being written in real time, not 3 years ago. This is what the politicized betrayal of truthfulness in public health does to innocent people, particularly those with higher-risk conditions, like Jessica:
If you are even remotely compassionate, you can't read this woman's paralyzing fear, her bewilderment over the failure of incessant testing, N95 masking while outdoors, crowd avoidance, and personal isolation, and not feel at once incredibly sad for her and her family, and simultaneously livid at Dr. Fauci and his fellow marauders who have used their authority to wield power rather than actually help people by telling them the truth.
This is a treachery of epic proportions, and while I pray Jessica realizes it sooner rather than later, enough of the public already has for me to say I don't see how trust in these institutions can ever be restored. And when you're talking about public health, that is a profound tragedy.
