6 Times Fauci Argued for Closing Schools

The economist John Kenneth Galbraith once quipped, “Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.”

The line comes to mind after watching Dr. Anthony Fauci’s interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl over the weeknd. In the interview, Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was asked whether it was a “mistake” for schools to remain shut down for so long during the pandemic.

“I don’t want to use the word ‘mistake,’ Jon, because if I do, it gets taken out of the context that you’re asking me the question on,” Fauci explained on Sunday. “We should realize, and have realized, that there will be deleterious collateral consequences when you do something like that.”

Fauci is correct that there were serious “deleterious” consequences of school closures. For example, it was recently reported that the class of 2022 saw average ACT scores plummet to the lowest level in more than thirty years, and there’s no reason to believe that younger students didn’t experience similar results. Lost learning is hardly the only “deleterious” consequence, however; the decline of mental health among youths during lockdowns has also been well chronicled.

Some may see Fauci’s response as reasonable, because he’s now acknowledging the collateral damage of these policies. The problem is that Fauci is not actually conceding anything. Nobody—and I mean nobody—ever believed you could shut down schools (and society more broadly) for any meaningful amount of time and not experience some “deleterious” consequences.

But it gets worse. Fauci goes on to claim he had nothing to do with the damaging policy.

“I ask anybody to go back over the number of times that I have said we’ve got to do everything we can to keep the schools open, no one plays that clip,” Fauci told Karl. “They always come back and say, ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with it].”

ABC News: “Was it a mistake, in so many states and so many localities, to see schools closed as long as they were?”

Dr. Fauci: “I don’t want to use the word mistake, Jon…They always come back and say, ‘Fauci was responsible for closing schools.’ I had nothing to do [with it].” pic.twitter.com/dyERywd2uW

— Jon Miltimore (@miltimore79) October 18, 2022 6 Times Fauci Argued for School Closures

Fauci may not have sat on a school board or wielded police power during the pandemic, but his claim that he bears no responsibility for school closing takes chutzpah. It’s undeniable that many schools, cities, and state governments shut down schools precisely because of what the White House’s top medical advisor was saying, and what Fauci was saying was clear.

The journalist Jordan Schachtel has a timeline of Fauci’s statements on school reopenings, and it’s worth examining.

3/12/20:

Fauci calls for a nationwide shutdown of schools.

“The one thing I do advise and I said this in multiple hearings and multiple briefings, that right now we have to start implementing both containment and mitigation. And

*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases