FAUCI and TRUMP

DrAnthony Fauci agreed with the leading question posed by CNBC interviewer Dr Sanjay Gupta.  Gupta’s query: Isit true that the USA “has the worst Covid 19 outbreak in the world?” Yes, said Fauci, “The numbers don’t lie”.

Of course we all know—Fauci included—that numbers do lie. Manipulating numerical data to make a political point  one way or another is a a lucrative cottage industry in Washington and in politics in general .and Fauci is part of that scene.  Gupta’s question being a prime exmple of that effort.  Fauci who has a long history as a presidential public health advisor going back to President Reagan, has an ego bigger than his physical stature would indicate. Perhaps those two factors are causally related and much of his verbal sparring with the President may be attributed to a bruised ego and a much more progressive political philosophy than that of the President he has promised to advise.

 Fauci who tries to present an aura of infallibility is now famous (or infamous) for a number of errors and misstatements of his own.  Early in the Covid 19 pandemic, Fauci stated that there was no need to wear masks.  His early advice: “no masks needed” was eventually altered to: “masks obligatory”.

In regard to treatment protocols, he has been  adamant in in his opposition to the use of the drug:  hydroxychloroquine.   When anecdotal evidence indicated that this long used (for 40 years) drug —widely and safely used as an immunosuppressant, anti-parasitic, and for lupus and arthritis treatment—showed promise in the early treatment of Covid19 and may have prophylactic effects, he belittled those who suggested its use   Though Fauci had no alternative evidence that “it was of no use’ he insisted that it be banned and circumscribed.   In response to his widely read statements —several poorly devised (and one actual phony study—later withdrawn from publication) attempted to “prove” just that.  But again —he was shown to be wrong —and more recently, new studies (double blind “gold standard”) studies have revealed the efficacy of the drug Especially when used to treat patients early in the infection.

And finally,  the “numbers don’t lie” statement to Sanjay Gupta during the CNBC interview are pure hyperbole—unbecoming and reeking of bias from a supposed scientist.   (Fauci states that the USA with “5% “ (sic) of the population has about 20% of Covid deaths”,using  numbers fraught with uncontrolled variables and unknowns . Total world population (@7.8 billion)includes densely populated nations with very little control in actual mortality data. (China India) as well as vast swaths of areas where people live in near isolation and to which this pandemic has not yet reached.  The comparison Fauci makes is not valid)

It seems that Fauci has a penchant for applying rigor to certain numbers —which he has some preconceived notions about (such as studies on hydroxycholoquine) while for him it’s just fine to use sloppy math, uncontrolled variables and hyperbole when describing something he favors or would like folks to believe.

So it was OK to claim that the raw mortality numbers  comparing the world’s most touristed, most affluent nation’s covid 19 infections were valid to use in comparison to other nations,  though they completely ignore population differences.

A true scientific approach in comparing national responses to the pandemic (fraught as they are with many differences in culture, genetics, obesity rates, comorbidities,  health care, etc.) is to eliminate as many variables as possible in the comparison.  The first would be controlling for population size -thus representing data as numbers per million population.   So viewing countries of vastly different population sizes and trying to claim something about how they are responding to the pandemic is meaningless —unless you are so politicized that you are simply trying to cast the US in a bad light.

Yes the USA does have the highest numbers of covid mortality—but it is a nation of 325 million.  We can not compare the raw data of the USA deaths to that of Andorra -a tiny nation (Pop 80,000) tucked away in isolation in the Pyrenees between Spain and France. In effect that is what Fauci did when he claimed: the “numbers don’t lie”.

On most reasonable characterizations of covid 19 mortality rates the USA is about 8th on the list of most impacted world nations in regard to Covid cases and mortality rates.

Fauci apparently has the habit of viewing  the “glass as half empty” rather than “half full”.  In this crisis we are faced with negativism all around us.  Our leadership should be presenting data in an unbiased format.  In this stage of our tribulations we do not need supposed specialist running around hanging black crepes of mourning like morticians in the nation’s public media.

Unlike Fauci’s ‘‘this is not going away” versus the Presidnt’s view —that “this will pass” (ridiculed by the media) the President is right.  Covid 19 will pass the same way other pandemics did —small pox, measles, polio, and other former diseases.  Real scientists know that these populations all reach  a peak  and then drop off precipitously.  So will Covid 19.   It too will pass on.