How F***i Fooled America | Opinion
When the p******c hit, America needed someone to turn to for advice. The media and public naturally looked to Dr. Anthony F***i—the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, an esteemed laboratory immunologist, and one of President Donald Trump's chosen C***D advisers. Unfortunately, Dr. F***i got major epidemiology and public health questions wrong. Reality and scientific studies have now caught up with him.
Here are the key issues:
Natural immunity. By pushing v*****e mandates, Dr. F***i ignores naturally acquired immunity among the C***D-recovered, of which there are more than 45 million in the United States. Mounting evidence indicates that natural immunity is stronger and longer lasting than v*****e-induced immunity. In a study from Israel, the v******ted were 27 times more likely to get symptomatic C***D than the unv******ted who had recovered from a prior infection.
We have known about natural immunity from the disease at least since the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Pilots, truckers, and longshoremen know about it, and nurses know it better than anyone. Under F***i's mandates, hospitals are firing heroic nurses who recovered from C***D they contracted while caring for patients. With their superior immunity, they can safely care for the oldest and frailest patients with even lower t***smission risk than the v******ted.
Protecting the elderly. While anyone can get infected, there is more than a thousand-fold difference in mortality risk between the old and the young. After more than 700,000 reported C***D deaths in America, we now know that lockdowns failed to protect high-risk older people. When confronted with the idea of focused protection of the vulnerable, Dr. F***i admitted he had no idea how to accomplish it, arguing that it would be impossible. That may be understandable for a lab scientist, but public health scientists have presented many concrete suggestions that would have helped, had F***i and other officials not ignored them.
What can we do now to minimize C***D mortality? Current v******tion efforts should focus on reaching people over 60 who are neither C***D-recovered nor v******ted, including hard-to-reach, less-affluent people in rural areas and inner cities. Instead, Dr. F***i has pushed v*****e mandates for children, students, and working-age adults who are already immune—all low-risk populations—causing tremendous disruption to labor markets and hampering the operation of many hospitals.
School closures. Schools are major t***smission points for influenza, but not for C***D. While children do get infected, their risk for C***D death is minuscule, lower than their already low risk of dying from the flu. Throughout the 2020 spring wave, Sweden kept daycare and schools open for all its 1.8 million children ages 1 to 15, with no masks, testing, or social distancing. The result? Zero C***D deaths among children and a C***D risk to teachers lower than the average of other professions. In fall 2020, most European countries followed suit, with similar results. Considering the devastating effects of school closures on children, Dr. F***i's advocacy for school closures may be the single biggest mistake of his career.
https://www.newsweek.com/how-f***i-fooled-america-opinion-1643839?utm_source=PushnamiMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=automatic&UTM=1635808785531&subscriberId=6143b74d7aeb51cecb3fa208How F***i Fooled America | Opinion br When the p**... (