Maybe We're Not Helping? The Public Health Fiasco

An interesting piece in Medpage Today from a few weeks ago: "Op-Ed: Why Did Fauci Move the Herd Immunity Goal Posts?"

Late last week, Fauci told the New York Times that new science had changed his thinking on the herd immunity threshold -- but he also admitted that his statements were influenced in part by "his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks."

Specifically, the fraction of people who would need immunity to SARS-CoV-2 (either through vaccination or recovery from prior infection) to extinguish the spread of the virus was initially estimated to be 60% to 70%. In recent weeks, Fauci had raised the percentage: from 70% to 75%, and then to 75%, 80%, and 85%.

The problem with Fauci is his obvious moving of the goalposts and explicit admission that he's playing us:

"When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said. "Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85."

Similar sentiments in Bloomberg Opinion: "Pandemic Regrets? Experts Have a Few":

In the last couple of weeks, I’ve asked a number of experts what they know now that they wish they’d known in the spring, and where they think public health got things wrong. Two big trends emerged: lockdowns (too blunt) and testing (too slow). With months left to go before vaccination can curtail the pandemic, 2020’s regrets should be 2021’s lessons.

University of Minnesota epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, a member of Biden’s advisory board, said one March mistake was closing businesses in places in the middle of the country that had seen almost no cases. “Was it appropriate to shut down so many things back then when there was so little, if any transmission? I think you can argue now that probably was not the best use of resources … it clearly alienated the very populations that we needed to have work with us,” he says.

The time was squandered and so was public trust. He compares the situation to hurricane warnings. People take them seriously because they are usually right. In many Midwest states, people went into emergency mode at the wrong time.