To get a true sense of just how grossly incompetent the COVID “experts” we’ve entrusted with our lives really are, look no further than Scott Gottlieb’s book tour.
Gottlieb is the former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and he’s doing the rounds on TV, explaining to whoever will listen that we — “we” meaning everyone who isn’t him — could have done things differently at the start of the pandemic in order to be in a better position than we are now (the apparent tail-end of the second-worst wave of new infections to date).
“Political leaders could have stepped up and tried to galvanize the public behind a common set of shared principles,” Gottlieb said Monday on MSNBC. “Easy stuff like masks. We couldn’t even agree on the easy stuff. Things like getting the public vaccinated, that’s going to be more difficult. When we can’t even get a political consensus around a virtue of wearing masks in public and private as a component of trying to reduce infection and protect our fellow citizens, then we’re really behind the eight ball.”
He went on to fault — who else? — former President Trump for arriving at the White House back in October and removing his mask on camera. “You know, the president ceremoniously took off his mask when he came home from the hospital while he was still infectious with the virus,” he said. “That clearly sends a signal to the public that, you know, masks are imprudent and it’s counterproductive to what we’re trying to do as public health officials.”
This is what is known in the public health community as “B.S.”
The way Gottlieb tells it, you would think Trump had staged a public burning of masks on the White House lawn.
But during the incident that Gottlieb is referring to, the president was seen exiting Marine One on the White House lawn, heading to the residence with his face covered by a surgical mask. He wore it as he walked up the stairs to the Truman Balcony, at which point he took it off and put it in his pocket.
He was outside and he was alone. The guidance from the “experts” has never been to wear a mask when you’re standing by yourself outdoors. That would be stupid. But, hey. I won’t pretend to know Gottlieb on a personal level.
What’s more, there was no “easy stuff” in 2020. It wasn’t simply a matter of wearing masks, which we were initially told by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the deity, were a pointless waste of time. How silly that anyone would think a mask could prevent infection of a microscopic germ!
Masks were eventually en vogue, but only after thousands of people were thrown out of work, had their businesses shuttered, and then were told to lock themselves away from friends and family for weeks on end.
Piece of cake, right Gottlieb?
At the same time, every Democrat running for president and every TV news anchor outside of Fox was laying each new COVID case and death at Trump’s feet. It was an election year, after all, and in all of that tragedy, they saw an opportunity.
Under those circumstances, masks became a little beside the point for a lot of people and yes, some of them resented the nags who got a rush out of telling people what to do.
If I was told to stand by and watch everything I had worked for quickly slip away, I might not be in the best mood for a confrontation over masks either.
In a separate interview on CBS the day before, Gottlieb admitted that the recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for individuals to maintain six feet of distance from one another in public is based on nothing.
“Nobody knows where it came from,” he said.
And yet we’re supposed to be listening to these people.
Fauci said just last week that it “would be a mistake” for the FDA to decline recommendations for booster shots for all adults who have been vaccinated against COVID. After the FDA did just that, he went on CNN Sunday to say never mind, “I have no problem at all with their decision.”
There’s The Science™️ for ya!
Through it all, Gottlieb still thinks there’s something we — us, not him — could have done differently. With the raging incompetence we’ve seen, the inability to get consistent and reliable information from all of the experts, I’m skeptical.
Not everything Gottlieb has to say is entirely useless, though. In that MSNBC interview, he said, “We were never going to be able to stop this pandemic,” and that, “This virus was going to spread.”
Yeah. He at least got that part right.
