The case against Dr. Fauci . . .

. . . as made yesterday by Peter Navarro, an assistant to the president, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.

In late January, when I was making the case on behalf of the president to take down the flights from China, Fauci fought against the president’s courageous decision — which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.

When I warned in late January in a memo of a possibly deadly pandemic, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was telling the news media not to worry.

When I was working feverishly on behalf of the president in February to help engineer the fastest industrial mobilization of the health care sector in our history, Fauci was still telling the public the China virus was low risk.

When we were building new mask capacity in record time, Fauci was flip-flopping on the use of masks.

And when Fauci was telling the White House Coronavirus Task Force that there was only anecdotal evidence in support of hydroxychloroquine to fight the virus, I confronted him with scientific studies providing evidence of safety and efficacy. A recent Detroit hospital study showed a 50% reduction in the mortality rate when the medicine is used in early treatment.

Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening. The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open.

After looking around the web for comments etc. more than I intended to, I (a) commend Navarro for putting these accusations out there, (b) concede the nuances involved while still suspicious on my own about a 36-year veteran of the Washington morass who is obviously well practiced at minding his p’s and q’s diplomatically and politically, and (c) (always make it a-b-c, all beyond that has reader giving up) I did find this below appearing at end of an extended USA Today interview last February, when Dr. F. was asked:

Q. We see everyone walking around in masks. Do they work?

A. A mask is much more appropriate for someone who is infected and you’re trying to prevent them from infecting other people than it is in protecting you against infection. If you look at the masks that you buy in a drug store, the leakage around that doesn’t really do much to protect you. And for example, people start saying, should I start wearing a mask? Now, in the United States, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask.

What a difference five months make.

I’m gonna copy that to the lady at church who has several times bugged me about my non-wearing of the mask while praying at daily Mass, after I’d worn it as the sine qua non of being allowed past the angels guarding the door.

Second thought, I won’t do that, saving it as a last resort to combat her misguided zeal.