Dr. Anthony Fauci has been making the rounds on public affairs programs for several days talking up vaccination requirements for domestic travel. He emphasizes in each case that it makes sense for international travel to keep virus cases out of the country (but unvaccinated Americans are allowed to return, and the virus is already spreading here rapidly).
Fauci then goes on to suggest that a domestic vaccine travel requirement would make sense, not to ‘keep the virus out’, but to serve as an incentive to get vaccinated. Fauci has headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for 37 years. His comments are not by accident. However in addition to being legally questionable, such a requirement may wind up having the opposite effect Fauci hopes.
In case you missed it this morning, Dr. Fauci talking on @MSNBC @Morning_Joe about the potential for a vaccination requirement for domestic air travel: "If you want to do that with domestic flights, I think that's something that seriously should be considered." pic.twitter.com/NZVDmt8UYK
— Ross Feinstein (@RossFeinstein) December 27, 2021
I would personally love this because those who are vaccinated and boosted with mRNA vaccines are less likely to get infected, clear the virus more quickly, and have virus coated in antibodies when they are infectious. In other words being surrounded only by vaccinated passengers would mean a safer environment within which I could travel.
However I do not favor it because,
- The U.S. is not pursuing, and has never pursued, a zero covid strategy which would at least make domestic travel restrictions coherent
- The virus is already spreading widely in the country, limiting travel to those who are vaccinated won’t ‘prevent spread’
- And breakthrough cases are real, those who are vaccinated do get and spread the virus, just at lower rates than those who are not
- Flying isn’t a less safe environment than other indoor congregant activities that have no such legal restriction
- And the Supreme Court has consistently held that there’s a fundamental right to interstate travel. Cf. Crandall v. Nevada, 73 U.S. 35 (1868); United States v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745 (1966). While the court hasn’t found a specific right to particular modes of transportation, placing restrictions on air travel from New York to California or Miami to Seattle would represent a substantial burden on these rights.
Since there are fundamental rights involved, at a minimum there would have to be carveouts to avoid infringing on religious liberty as well as those unable to obtain protection from vaccines. That means either placing a burden on airlines to grant or deny vaccine exemptions, or creating a federal vaccine passport and exemption system.
Of course the data behind who is and isn’t vaccinated is generally held at the state level, and there’s no good way to do this federally. The CDC can’t even keep track of boosters versus first doses. Our federal system and data issues make this impractical.
Ultimately though Fauci’s ‘incentive to get vaccinated’ argument falls flat. And that’s because he’s no longer talking about the science of vaccines, but about human psychology and about marginal benefits of political actions. U.S. public health authorities have consistently messed up the messaging, which has led to counterproductive results, and they’d be doing the same here.
- There’s little marginal vaccination left to encourage. Ninety percent of Americans aged 65-74 are fully vaccinated while the figure for those 75 and older is 85%. Over 80% of U.S. adults have taken a shot. As existing vaccine mandates kick, and as Omicron spreads, that’ll probably rise to 85%. In any setting there’s always going to be some vaccine refusals – that was true pre-pandemic. And not everyone flies.
- This could backfire with even more skepticism – including for other vaccines. Fauci is right that there would be some people along a certain margin who would get vaccinated if there was a domestic air travel requirement. But that comes at a significant cost to rights, creates a significant bureaucracy to fly, all for little marginal benefit. And it likely creates even greater vaccine resistance not just to this vaccine, but as spillover to all vaccines. So there’s a public health cost.
- There may be more effective means available. Early in the year when Congress voted stimmies to most Americans I wrote that payments should be tied to vaccination. Fauci focuses on domestic air travel because there’s some federal authority here, not because it’s the strongest lever to pull. The Biden administration is pursuing a number of other mandates, which the Supreme Court will consider in early January. They haven’t yet tried large dollar incentives for remaining holdouts to pick up a similar marginal increment.
- Boosters are a better strategy for public health than forcing vaccines on remaining holdouts. At this point there’s far more benefit to clear, coherent messaging on booster shots than there is trying to force a first shot on those unwilling to take one. And the government has already screwed that up, since the FDA advisory committee initially voted against boosters for everyone because Biden had promised them, appearing to undercut their authority.
We know from the data on Omicron that boosters do more than first and second doses to generate protection, and boosters can have an effect on the current Omicron wave while putting needles into the arms of those who haven’t yet had a first shot likely will not (because of the waiting period after each shot to get the next dose).
Mostly a domestic air travel vaccine requirement would be for show, in the face of a federal inability to take decisive action that ameliorates the pandemic. It’s taken 21 months for the government to prioritize testing, and they’re still moving too slowly. How the government didn’t step in with multibillion dollar at-risk orders for Paxlovid to speed up production months ago is hard to even fathom.
I would love to fly only with those that are vaxxed, and by the way only with those that are tested same day (not previous day) as well. However as a matter of public policy this isn’t the best way to manage air travel or the pandemic. Let’s focus on encouraging boosters, fast-tracking multivalent boosters, and on researching next generation vaccines (including pan-coronavirus vaccines). And let’s quickly approve billions of tests, not hundreds of millions, so that we can all test regularly before interacting with others. Airlines might even consider waiving penalties on basic economy tickets for passengers who test positive.
What percent of the currently flying American public are vaccinated? That’s an important number. I assume it’s very high, because flyers are wealthier, more educated, and more liberal than the general public, thus more likely to be vaccinated.
So in practice, a vaccine mandate or not might have a very small effect on the composition of travelers.
Basically a vaccine mandate for travel is like a penis mandate for the mens bathroom. Most users already comply regardless of a mandate.
The whole testing circus/hysteria needs to stop.
It has become so bad, people with no symptoms whatsoever are taking tests because they have been scare-mongered into taking them, test positive, and then clog up ER rooms because think they are dying!
Just Google ER Room + Vermont + COVID + asymptomatic.
If you seriously think you need to take a test to find out if you have COVID, it means you should be taken a test at all. What you do need to have done is to have your head examined for being deranged and hysterical.
Just imagine if we are constantly gonna test for the flu, the sniffles, or whatever. How may millions of people would test positive?
Covid testing should be the mandatory requirement to fly, absolutely no question.
Early on, I thought that the economic stimulus should be tied to vaccination. Get $10,000 if you are vaccinated or promise to be vaccinated when the vaccine is available. A family of 4 could get $40,000. Don’t want to be vaccinated, kiss your $40,000 goodbye.
Since there are 300M Americans, the maximum payment would $3 trillion.
No it should not Andrea. Only people who are on the payroll of the Medical-Industrial Complex would advocate such as thing.
Austinite-
Congrats you win the clown award. More educated means more vaccinated. And you through in wealthy for good measure. fucking dipstick.
Austinite said” flyers are wealthier, more educated, and more liberal than the general public, thus more likely to be vaccinated.”
Hahhahahaaaaa! Maybe in the 1970s. Today? Not so much.
The weasel of Wuhan strikes again!
The Supreme Court is going to start the process of reviewing all of the federal covid mandates in January. They will start w/ vaccine mandates and it will all keep going. The chances of the rules as we know them today remaining unchanged after the High Court rules are slim to none.
The voters get to weigh in next November. It is certain that there will be enough of a change in control of the legislature that the people that have driven two years of covid failure compared to other countries will be thrown out and held accountable including Fauci.
China might be looking for a few scientists by Feb 2022
and Ed above is absolutely right. If you test for a disease on a widespread basis, you will find people that have it – even if they never knew it.
The major question is: Why is COVID raging in Blue States? Of the top 10 states with the highest COVID-19 infection rate at the moment, seven of them are governed by Democrats!
What’s going on? Why are Democrats not “Following The Science”?? Why are Democrats trying to kill people???
Let’s answer those questions first before talking about another virtue-signaling mandate.
@Ed…Based on county voting in 2020, if you live in the reddest (pro Trump) 10% of the country versus the bluest (pro Biden) counties, you are six times more likely to die from the virus…six times!
The current case counts are largely based on weather…when things become cold, people go indoors more often and transmit the virus to each other.
Biden voters are more than 90% fully vaxxed. Trump supporters are just over 50%…fact
This is what happens when lay people start arguing with epidemiologists and those who have expertise in mitigating risk. That is what they do and they are good at it. The more people who disregard everything that Dr. Fauci says, the longer this pandemic will inflict suffering. Gary’s arguments are not about risk mitigation from a data standpoint. The arguments that telling the truth and preventing infections will “backfire”, that people will disregard instructions, that we should incentive boosters more are policy arguments not based on science and epidemiology. If we want to end this chapter more quickly, more people should listen to Dr. Fauci and fewer lay people should throw rocks at our country’s most respected authority on pandemics and vaccines.
My guess is that Fauci will walk this back. The clip I saw showed him suggesting a vax requirement would be an effective cudgel on the unvaxxed. It is truly one of th eonly times I have seen him so seriously move from providing information to engaging in outright advocacy.
Anti-vaxxers are a frustrating bunch to deal with. I wish Fauci did not provide them fodder for their prosecution complex.
Listen to “Dr.” Gary Leff at your own peril…
Signed: Dr. DCS (no quotation marks)
Trump Derangement Syndrome is showing in Tom K.
Trying to deny the fact that more people are infected in Blue States than anywhere else. Go see for yourself on the NYT COVID graph page.
Also, those that still speak about the “unvaxxed” are themselves fact deniers.
By now, most if not all people got vaccinated or were infected by COVID and thereby got some form of natural immunity.
And puhleez, do not show your ignorance by denying the existence of natural immunity. Because, you know, the Spanish Flu pandemic ended due to aliens from Mars descending from the heavens and vaccinated everyone? Right?
Sure did.
/rolleyes
@JWm,
So-callled “scientist” like Fauci have lost all credibility by selling out to the Medical-Industrial Complex. No wonder, more and more people will simply ignore what Fauci says.
Fauci has gone pretty far out on a legal limb with this and I can’t believe WH Counsel signed off on it. Neither the Government nor the airlines can legally require private citizens to submit to a specific medical treatment in order to travel between states. Fauci seems to be acting as a free agent recently and by doing so may be setting himself up to be thrown under the bus by the Administration at an opportune moment.
@derek…you are either being sarcastic, widely left on the political spectrum or have lost your mind completely. You suggest paying anyone that either is vaccinated or promises to get vaccinated $10,000 each for a maximum of 4 TRILLION dollars more of Federal debit. First, the population is closer to 330 million people currently with it increasing by thousands of illegal immigrants daily. The liberal Democrats can’t get a bill of 1.2 trillion passed so how are they ever going to get one over 4 trillion passed?
All this while we encourage thousands of immigrants to cross the border illegally without testing or vaccination. Total insanity!
My entire family is not only vaccinated but also boosted, so I am not anti-vaccine even though the vaccine is less effective than it was originally claimed. Oh, and the administration refuses to recognize immunity from actually having the disease. Follow the science…I think not.
I certainly hope that you were being sarcastic rather than serious.
How we know Tom K. is full of crap:
Blacks make up roughly 13% of the population and voted 87% for Biden, but are only 51% vaccinated. Unless non-Black Biden voters are somehow more than 100% vaccinated, not seeing how you get to 90%. Must have something to do with the new Equity Math.
@Ed – immunity from prior infection is important, but easily pierced by Omicron, prior infection + one dose of an mRNA vaccine is *far* more protective. It’s silly to ignore the role of prior infection, but also silly to overstate it. The government should recognize it though when considering what counts as ‘fully’ vaccinated…. so odd that prior infection + one dose of pfizer is not fully vaccinated, while 1 dose of J&J is.
It should be mandatory, just as it is for indoor dining in most many cities and most of Europe.
When local spread is high, as it is now, tests should also be mandatory.
Don’t want to vaxx and/or get a test? Drive yourself or stay home.
Another positive side effect is the unruly cretins we’ve been dealing with in planes all year fighting masks are almost certainly also unvaccinated. We’re all better off if they just stay home.
@JW “The arguments that telling the truth and preventing infections will “backfire”, that people will disregard instructions, that we should incentive boosters more are policy arguments not based on science and epidemiology.”
Precisely. Fauci himself has left science and epidemiology *by his own admission* here. He says a domestic air travel mandate wouldn’t be able limiting spread from one place to another. He said it would be a policy tool to pressure people to get vaccinated.
So the relevant questions are those of policy – how much benefit, at what cost, and compared to what alternatives?
I still would rather see a vaccine mandate not just to fly but to enter restaurants nationwide, to ride an Uber, basically to leave your house. I agree with some of your other suggested strategies such as that they should have bought billions of tests. Also I don’t necessarily have a problem with your vaccine payout proposal.
But this idea to give people freedom to kill and sicken others I don’t think works well.
As for the data infrastructure, we should have a nationwide vaccine passport, and perhaps it could use TSA’s KTN infrastructure. So maybe you would generate KTN’s not just for TSAPre but also to show vax status. The KTN could be required to ride a train, take an Uber, go to work, go to the grocery store, etc.
The Chinese 0 Covid strategy makes much more sense to me than the US’s chaos strategy all in the name of the freedom to kill others and make others sick, and letting every county and evry town and state come up with their own protocols. And for the CDC to come up with a handwritten card to track vax status as the key tracker instead of something like a file tied to your SSN or KTN.
Only 61.7% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated. You focus on older groups when we see younger people being hospitalized and in some cases dying. in NYC the number of children being hospitalized with covid has quintupled since the start of the month. Common thread for people being hospitalized? We know vaccines cut down on transmission. Even with breakthrough cases the unvaccinated are much more likely to get infected and spread covid than fully vaccinated people. Not to mention breed new mutations that could be even deadlier. Have no problem with them being denied access to flying. Just like in NYC, Boston, Chicago they can’t go into restaurants etc for indoor dining without being vaccinated. It will either encourage anti-vaxxers to get vaccinated or if they still refuse maybe it will encourage them to stay put instead of spreading covid all over the place. Unvaccinated people are 60 times more likely to end up in critical care units than vaccinated people. Enough of coddling the anti-vaxxers. Many of them are the same idiots that pull down their masks every chance they get.
Should we really keep calling it a “vaccine” if you need a booster shot every month? Sounds more like a “gift to the Medical Industrial Complex” to me.
He is no more wrong about airplane vaccine mandates than he is about airplane mask mandates.
In my opinion it’s nuts not to be vaccinated and get the booster too. But…demanding people get it before they travel domestically is crazy too. First of all, it might not apply to flights within a state so that leaves an awfully big hole. And even if it does, we’re talking about a total of maybe 1.5 million tests a day. Can the system possibly handle that? Would there be long lines at airports for this? What do you do about the occasional false positive? Can gate agents tell a genuine test result from a phony one obtained elsewhere (maybe if everybody had an app, but not everyone has a cell phone). How about people taking interstate buses or trains? Take those instead of flying defeats the whole purpose. Would the airlines even want this?
Look, the way this is going everybody is going to get infected sooner or later and at best we’ll slow it down a little before a milder form of the virus becomes endemic. This is what diseases generally evolve into and pretending people control nature is just driving everybody crazy. In fact, a demand like this might just collapse public willingness to follow any direction at all. It’s already going that way; social distancing is largely gone and “danger, don’t go to this country!” is like the boy who cried wolf. After a while people just get tired of being hyped up and given the short attention span of Americans this whole thing is likely to fade into the background of their lives. At best that process can be intelligently managed. But this proposal won’t do that.
Fauci is drunk on power and him opening his mouth only makes people less trusting of vaccines.
Can’t wait for my 4th 5th 6th 8th 9th 10Th booster etc
The more the better! woo hoo
I’m no Dr Foochi but I’m all for some kind of easy testing and vaccines to travel
For years I’ve caught stuff from others while flying when they were sick
But nothing likely that could put me 20 foot under my guess.
Anything in the name of safety. This isn’t about spreading the common cold anymore
We gave up our privacy on the internet and the cloud. We’ve given up our right of choice one way or the other to some degree.So if others want to beat it the topic to death so be it.
I have one younger family member that anguishes over all of this.I have enough to worry about and as bad as it some of this may be we still aren’t communist China just yet
I don’t see how anyone can ask for any kind of a mandate since the injections are NOT guarantees to work. Either you believe in the cooties and everyone that does should stay at home till it disappears or they are just plain hypocrites, saying that some risks are ok (which is what the uninjected people are saying/doing by not getting the injection amd contains to live their lives) So, basically the country is full of hypocrites and or sick/evil/demented people that continue to spread diseases after being injected by the magic cooties shot.
The real decider about airline passenger vaccine mandates whether some admit it or not will be airline management and their unions.
When 2 of the big 4 US airline CEOs said in front of a Congressional hearing that masks don’t do any good and are more harmful to the airlines than not having them, NO airline is going to support vaccine mandates for airline passengers because it will result in a huge reduction in demand.
Whether airline unions agree w/ mgmt on covid policy or not, all airline mgmt has to do is tell the government that they will have no choice but to lay off tens of thousands of employees.
If not being willing to lay off airline employees was an issue in the 2020 elections, it will be just as big if not bigger in 2022 AFTER the feds have spent tens of billions of dollars supporting airlines. If the government wanted to eliminate double digit percentages of capacity (similar to any of the big 4), they didn’t need to prop up airlines only to impose a vax mandate that would destroy demand.
Fauci is out to push the limits of control using his “expertise” as a platform.
Btw, the Chinese have put a city of 13 million people under strict lockdown as they pursue a covid zero strategy that they know full well is unattainable.
I am tired of basing policy on some “right” people have to spread death and disease. Require vaccines for anything that requires an ID or admission charge. People can travel by private car, attend schools online, work from home if they insist on being unvaccinated. Not forever, but until vaccines and treatments get us to the point where these people aren’t packing the ICUs and morgues to the extent that others can’t be accommodated.
Follow the science
#thisistheway
Interesting and saddening that this blog’s responses reflect how politicized the pandemic has become — even as President Trump (God bless him for Operation Warp Speed) — gets his booster and advises vaccination. I write as one who got his vaccinations and boosters as soon as they were available to me.
As to the worthless liar that is Dr. Fauci — well, I’ve said here before that he is the poster child for mandatory retirement ages. More to the point, he’s become such a lightning rod that I don’t think he can benefit *any* administration trying to fight the Chinese coronavirus. He should resign so a new face without baggage can speak.
That said, just because it’s Fauci doesn’t mean he’s wrong. Having had to spend a small fortune on various COVID tests so my wife and I can make necessary travels outside the US, I do not understand why my domestic flights do not require boosted vaccination or a very recent negative test to fly.
I am reminded of the time not so long ago when folk would try to get on ‘planes with various animals and livestock as their “emotional support” (vomiting noises off, stage left) animal. My answer was always the same. If you were so unhinged that you couldn’t fly without Fluffy, either buy a Teddy Bear or take the bus. I feel pretty much the same way about vaccine refusniks: get a shot, get a test, or get the bus.
I *am not* though, in favor of mandated vaccination for the general population. That’s a slippery slope I hope no thinking person would want to launch us down. Those of us who have a few years under our belts know full well government can’t be trusted with that power, seeing full well how some politicians here and abroad have reveled in the opportunity to exercsie unlimited power in the name of public health.
Folk have a right to refuse vaccination. They do not, IMO, have a right to do so without cost or inconvenience.
The big question here is why a travel blogger thinks he knows more that Dr. (DOCTOR – PhD) Fauci.
Fauci should disappear from the spotlight. He’s well past retirement age and no longer relevant. He’s had his fun being the big-shot know-it-all for far too long. If people are afraid of catching the virus, they should stay home. The rest of us need to get on with our lives. This virus disaster needs to be OVER.
@CW
Do you also goose-step down the street, sporting the straight arm salute???
YOU NAZI!!!!!!
You and fascist idiots like you need to do the World a favor and drink 3 gallons of bleach!
The real question is why a doctor – regardless of credentials – continues to push for measures which have been established as beyond what the federal government can do.
As much as some people might dislike it, the federal government is LIMITED by the constitution and the Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the power of the states and localities to do what the federal government often tries to do.
If Biden could have imposed a national vaccine mandate, he most certainly would have. So he berates people who have had full control of their own health decisions for their entire lives. There is NOTHING about this pandemic according to the constitution that allows the federal government to violate the separation of powers that exists in the United States.
The Supreme Court is taking up two types of vaccine mandates not because they are medical experts but because they are legal experts.
The reason Fauci has failed is because he cannot work within a system where he is not the center of the universe and people are doing what they want to do.
Vaccine mandates won’t pass Congress because legislators aren’t willing to defend their decisions before the public and the Supreme Court will say that imposing them any other way is not legal.
Don’t Look Up….
“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness“
What about the right o “life” of the 800,000 US citizens who have died from COVID. Seems like their rights have been seriously violated but somehow you think that interstate travel is a more important right. That doesn’t make any sense.
@Austinite What kind of funky street dope are you on, Son?
Stop with the testing. You either have it or you will have it.
Stop with the masks!! They don’t work!!!
Stop with the boosters. If we continue down this path it will be a catastrophe…..
Fauci should be put on trial. He started all this with his gain of function. Hasn’t practiced medicine in years. Never treated anyone for Covid. He is sub-human.
Second call to the WHO: Please, don’t vaccinate against Omicron.
Gary – watch someone who knows what he is talking about and has been right since his message last February.
You can see the disaster unfolding right now. It is from the VACCINATED!
voiceforscienceandsolidarity dot org/ (From a Pro Vaccine Expert)
@Todd what you are promoting makes no scientific or practical sense. Everyone knows that non-symptom is spread of COVID is a real threat so many people have it without showing any signs of illness. And a vaccine still is very effective and prevents seriously illness. The unvaccinated are the vast majority of people in the hospitals and dying. Get a clue.
@DaveS “I am tired of basing policy on some “right” people have to spread death and disease. Require vaccines for anything that requires an ID or admission charge. ”
Would you include no ID no vote?
@Alex –
Sorry but you must unlearn what has been shoved into your brain. Go watch the video. Learn something. Stop being a sheep.
I don’t really care much at this point. Let it all unfold as it will. This MUST get a lot worse before people wake up. It’s coming if we keep jabbing…
We should have done that a lot sooner. In fact, the world should have done it a lot sooner. Viruses don’t travel. People do.
Would love to see a vaccinated with quadruple-or-more boosters airline. With free donuts, all the liquor one could drink, extra wide seats for your double-sized rear ends and double masking at minimum level N95. I would bet money on the short-term life expectancy.
This is just about strong-arming Americans. That’s all it is……possibly the most un-American thing ever.
The big mean orange man would never entertain such bullshit.
@jfhscott – “My guess is that Fauci will walk this back.”
Already done: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fauci-i-don-t-think-people-should-expect-a-domestic-flight-vaccine-mandate/ar-AASbSoC?ocid=msedgntp
@Tim Dunn – Precisely. The pandemic has shown that a significant number of people in this country have a level of constitutional literacy at frighteningly low levels. Fauci is like the nerdy kid who was bullied in school, all of a sudden gets a lot of power & prestige, and gets drunk on said power and prestige.
Dear Gary,
I would very much like a vaccine requirement for flying. It is annoying sitting next to or adjacent to coughing children or chin diaper wearing adults who hold a cup, can or bottle in their hand as an excuse.
I would feel safer if my seat opponents were fully vaccinated, including a booster shot.
I’m sick to death of the “you have no right to risk my life” mantra of the authoritarian leninists in the U.S. As a 40+ year pro-driver I can say (you) people (everyone of you) risk my life a bazillion times a day with the stupid dung stunts you pull behind the wheel. So STFU.
Is Fauci is totally right or wrong?
Already walked it back within hours.
“Follow the Experts”. Follow this one and you end up in circles. AGAIN.
Anthony Fauci on Monday said Americans shouldn’t expect a Covid vaccination requirement for domestic air travel in the near future unless “things change dramatically.”
The comments come after the president’s chief medical adviser said earlier in the day that such a requirement should “seriously” be considered for travelers in the United States. Fauci said Monday evening that this should be another policy tool under consideration, but that he wasn’t suggesting it was likely to happen.
The high dollar incentives have been tried in Colorado and elsewhere. No evidence that they moved the needle.
As stated, Fauci ran a trial balloon up the flag pole by suggesting a domestic vaccine requirement and had it shot down. Given that the majority of Americans no longer believe the current Administration is handling covid well, it isn’t a surprise that the President just told governors that covid is probably something that needs to be handled by the states – which is also likely in preparation for having a bunch of policies ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.
Those that argue about other’s rights being violated because someone else doesn’t vaccinate or voluntarily mask should tell us what other disease in the history of the United States has involved a multi-year requirement for the healthy to do something in the interests of the country. Covid is not the first infectious disease, even transmitted by respiratory means, and yet people somehow think that they should require someone else to do something to protect them. You don’t run around asking someone’s TB status or whether they had the flu shot or any other health related status – and people somehow think they can justify it by the scope of what has been but not necessarily is covid now. If you believe in the vaccine or wearing masks for yourself, then they don’t need to force other people to do something for your benefit. If someone has to do something for your benefit, then there really is no security in those procedures for you – in which case you should not expect to be running around the world during a pandemic but should stay home.
And the constitution does not address disease but it does address outside threats including of a military nature. It does not allow the government to remove your rights in the name of the country – and there is no gray; the requirements are either black or white – allowed or not allowed.
As for driving, I hate driving in the US more than any other developed country precisely because Americans approach traffic just like they do with everything else – whatever they want, everyone else be damned. But there are liabilities you incur – and they can be very steep – if you harm someone or their property while driving; whether others don’t like how you drive is immaterial if you aren’t violating laws.
Alot of these covid actions might have made sense 1 1/2 years ago but covid is now nothing but a nuisance for the vast majority of people, producing mild symptoms but likely not leading to death. That is exactly what viruses do as they adapt.
It is precisely because covid is at this point that Biden’s advisers realize it is not worth fighting failing strategies that are illegal and unpopular, regardless of the fears and desires for government control that some have.
Fauci will be silenced either by his boss, the Courts or the public before long.
He is just grasping for his last relevance.
Post below from Alex Berenson this morning….
“Guys, I don’t know how to say this any more clearly: it is OVER.
The Omicold (pronounced Immacold) variant is about to bring this clown show to its inevitable conclusion.
I know none of our supposedly non-racist public health authorities were willing to believe the South African numbers, but we now have almost a month of data out of Denmark.
They are real. And they are spectacular.
Between Dec. 13 and Dec. 20, Denmark reported approximately 50,000 confirmed Omicron cases.
Given the approximately one-week lag between infection and hospitalization, those people should be flooding into hospitals.
EXCEPT THE NUMBER OF OMICRON PATIENTS IN DANISH HOSPITALS HAS NOT RISEN IN THE LAST WEEK.
You read that right. 50,000 positive tests the week before, no change in hospitalizations. Admissions have risen slightly, but patients are being discharged as fast as they are being admitted.
The result: as of Dec. 21, Danish hospitals had 47 Omicron patients, with under five (the report is not more specific) in intensive care.
As of Dec. 27, the hospitals had 51 Omicron patients, again with under five in intensive care.
The question is no longer whether Omicron is a cold. It’s whether it’s as dangerous as a cold. (And, again, this has nothing to do with Covid vaccines; most South Africans are not vaccinated, and the pattern there was the same.)
The only sane political move at this point is to drop ALL mandates – vaccine and otherwise – and ALL asymptomatic or quarantine testing (dropping all non-hospital testing would be even better) – and declare victory and go home. Even if the country weren’t burned out on scare stories and sick of being lied to, the reality of these figures is already obvious to most people. (Including LeBron James.)
When your media water-carriers have to write articles explaining the difference between Covid and a cold… it’s over.
So why won’t Uncle Joe just say so? Because the current strategy isn’t working – not politically, and not for the country. It’s time to surrender to the ro like you did to the Taliban and to inflation. At least this time admitting the problem will fix it.”
But if we keep on boosting….all hell will break loose!
Dr. Fauci is an expert on medical issues. He has an understanding of medical issues that frankly most of us will never understand.
Dr. Fauci is not an expert on air travel.
Dr. Fauci does have an opinion, and like any of us…Will most likely give his opinion.
Any president listens to many opinions and makes decisions based on the advice of many.
The president has listened to many opinions, and has not put vaccine restrictions on domestic air travel.
I’m not sure why this still continuously makes the news cycles.
Dan,
probably because Fauci loves to jump in front of cameras and tell us what he thinks the world needs while Biden’s legal team does not.
Oh my…. I just learned something new today. Had no idea….
The REAL reason for all this hysteria, mandates, vaccines/boosters, mainstream scare tactics. It is very simple. As long as a vaccine is approved for emergency use, big pharma cannot be sued. They have liability protection. Once it comes off emergency use they can be sued.
However, and this is the important point, once the vaccine is recommended to be used for children it goes back into a liability shield and you can no longer sue them. Not for kids who are harmed NOR for adults that are harmed. That is the real reason they are going after your kids. Pharma knows the vax will kill many kids. They don’t care because they cannot be sued at that point. So all you parents shooting up your kids with a vax that is useless against Covid but harmful in many ways to their innate immune system…..all you can do is pray it won’t be your child! Or, you for that matter!
Todd, the data about Denmark that you stated is very real. Omicron has hit Denmark hard, but Danes are not being hospitalized or dying at a high rate like we find in other countries. The problem with what you said is that your conclusion is wrong, essentially because you forgot to account for and including one critical stat: vaccination. Almost 80% of the Denmark people are fully vaccinated and of them, most are boosted. On the other hand, less than 63% of the American people are fully vaccinated and less than half of them are boosted.
It does appear that the Omicron variant is less damaging than Delta, but we can see in the U.S. not only a steep rise in cases, but one in hospitalizations and deaths. The increase in hospitalizations and deaths in the US is among the unvaccinated. If we take this new US data along with that of Denmark we see the unmistakable. We see the vaccines work. They were primarily designed to mitigate infection seriousness, reduce the need for hospitalization and prevent deaths. They’re doing that in Denmark and they’re doing that in the US.
If Omicron wasn’t much of a virus just like in Denmark we would see a steep case rise in the US, and like in Denmark, at the same time, we wouldn’t see a significant rise in hospitalizations and deaths, but that’s not the case in the US. The inescapable conclusion is that Omicron does cause serious disease and death, but not among the fully vaccinated and boosted.
The answer isn’t to forget it, but to double down on getting Americans vaccinated.
Personally, I wouldn’t bother to mandate vaccination, but I think the idea of not allowing unvaccinated Americans hold the rest of us hostage makes sense. I am in favor of restricting where unvaccinated Americans can go and what they can do. For Americans who have a medical condition that precludes vaccination, no problem. For others, if they don’t want to take it, that’s okay too, but that decision means they must take responsibility for it. It means they must do whatever is necessary to prevent them from infecting others, from mask wearing to restricting themselves to where they can go and what they can do, and when they get infected and seriously ill to take the financial responsibility for their decision and take medical responsibility too, to make sure they pay for their illness instead of forcing others to do that and to step aside so that people who took responsibility to stay well to the best of their ability can get proper treatment.
The only reason the strategy of vaccination in the US isn’t working is because of the moronic and unethical decision by too many to be irresponsible.
”but unvaccinated Americans are allowed to return”
Because American citizens can’t be denied entry to the country. It has nothing to do with vaccine politics(not that there should be vaccine politics, but Republicans decided to join forces with Jenny McCarthy as antivaxxers)
If only 2% of what Robert F Kennedy Jr wrote in his “The Real Anthony Fauci” is true the conclusion is Fauci has decided to not follow science but to do everything to enrich and grow his ego.
When Drudge Headlines about Fauci, “81 Years Old, Time to Go?” you know what’s coming.
@NSL14
VAERS disagrees with you.
Israel on their 4th booster disagrees with your statement that vaccines work.
Experts like Geert Vanden Bossche disagrees with you and I’ll accept his advice over yours.
If the vaccines work you should have no fear of the unvaccinated. This is now a pandemic of the vaccinated. Wake up man and accept it before this becomes unmanageable and really destroys human life!
You take away my rights for fears of Covid? What happens with the next Covid? And the next one after that? You have already taken many lives by silencing the experts from the other side to voice their opinions. So you believe that is ok as long as it is the narrative you believe. What happens when it is reversed for you one day in the future? You are ok with not allowing a debate in the open, on national tv with experts on both sides. Don’t let them speak. The world is flat and that’s that. My truth and only my truth. I’m sick of people like you.
Everything in Todd’s comment is wrong or misleading.
“VAERS disagrees with you.”
Adverse events following vaccination get logged, and by the way this is not all validated data. With a majority of the population vaccinated, it’s going to capture a lot of data – much of which has nothing whatsoever to do with vaccines. Remember that in clinical trial data Moderna had to include adverse events involving study participants… including one that was struck by lightning!
“Israel on their 4th booster disagrees with your statement that vaccines work.”
Israel is moving to 4th shots (not fourth boosters, second boosters) **because they work** but while their effectiveness against severe disease is excellent, protection against infection wanes especially as the virus has mutated and the vaccines target the spike protein of the original Wuhan strain.
“Experts like Geert Vanden Bossche disagrees with you and I’ll accept his advice over yours.”
Geert Vanden Bossche has been making heavily-debunked doomsday claims for a year that haven’t been true.
“If the vaccines work you should have no fear of the unvaccinated.”
No, because vaccines aren’t “either-or.” Setting up vaccines as needing 100% effectiveness to ‘work’ is silly. The mRNA vaccines work far better than we could have possibly hoped (or that very many did hope) in mid-2020. They are not perfectly effective. And against a backdrop of high levels of community transmission, breakthrough infections are real, there’s a reason to be cautious. And I’d add cautious where folks aren’t boosted, where they’re vaxed with J&J (or far worse, Sinovac!), or in especially large groups.
“This is now a pandemic of the vaccinated.”
In places where vaccinated make up a substantial majority of the population, a majority of infectious will be among those who are vaccinated (that’s just math) however severe outcomes are overwhelmingly among the unvaccinated. And infection is far more common among the unvaccinated than the boosted.
NSL,
the CDC has said 59% of cases are omicron – which still leaves a whole lot of people being infected by delta which is alot more dangerous.
The reason why hospitalizations and deaths have not fallen is because omicron is not the exclusive variant.
and todd is right….. anyone that doesn’t realize that covid management in the US has been heavily influenced by enrichment of big pharma is incredibly naive.
Natural immunity and a number of far less expensive treatments have been used elsewhere in the world – but those have been completely shut down in the US while we listen to endless pushes to vaccinate and boost.
@Tim Dunn – we’ve underutilized fluvoxamine, for sure, but a lot of the “far less expensive treatments [that] have been used elsewhere in the world” like Ivermectin had some hope but were demonstrated not to work – by the way, the best study on Ivermectin is also the one (TOGETHER trial) that showed fluvoxamine, another low cost and widely available drug, did work. That study wasn’t big Pharma trying to keep you from getting cheap cures!
The problem with clinical guidance on fluvoxamine – which is already FDA approved and can therefore be prescribed off-label – is that the FDA didn’t know how to manage its own bureaucracy to handle an approval without sponsorship. So in that sense ‘Big Pharma’ matters because bureaucratic processes are built around it. But they’re working to solve this and again there’s real demonstrated clinical benefit and any doctor can prescribe it today. It isn’t as effective as Paxlovid but until that’s widely available it’s important
@Gary –
Everything in your reply is wrong and that is where the problem is Gary. Isn’t it? That many disagree with the narrative.
By the way, VAERS is extremely underreported. Perhaps at 1or 2 percent max.
Ivermectin along with HCQ have been used by thousands of real doctors across the planet and recovery has been amazing. My doctor alone has treated over 350 and only one older man with non-related complications past away. While you have “studies”, some influenced by big pharma I and many others have real-world use case!.
Geet predicted in March if we vaccinate you will see variants. We have that now. His latest statement if we booster we will end up with a disaster. We shall see.
I live in a small area where there are hundreds like me who are unvaccinated. We all got Covid. We all recovered with therapeutics and we have natural immunity. NONE of us went to the hospital. This has happened the same all over the world.
Israel is a mess. Green pass no longer works unless you have had x amount of vaccines/shots/boosters, whatever you want to call it.
Why would FDA say it needs 75 years to release Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data to the public if there is nothing to hide????
Math doesn’t just work when the equations are skewed.
So, lets forget about our differences for a moment. I will put this same question out to you as I have done to others who think like you but are too weak to answer, except one. Lets see if you respond.
Gary – Would you be in favor of a national, live TV debate with experts from both side who present EVIDENÇE to support their argument. No editing, no “fact checkers” who are bought and payed for. No interruptions until the end and then debate. I think this would go far in helping to “heal” the divide if many on my side would perhaps see their experts defeated. Or, perhaps it goes the other way and then what happens? And, that’s the reason why it will never happen. “They” know we have the evidence.
I’ll wait for your response along with the rest of your subs.
thank you, Todd.
Gary failed to address naturally acquired immunity which is by far the biggest issue that alot of people have with the way the US has handled covid – and why there is little trust w/ the CDC or Fauci.
And many low income countries had no choice but to use low cost therapeutics because they couldn’t get enough vaccines when they were first available and because they could not afford the few expensive therapeutics that the US and Europe did recognize.
Looking down at countries that did what they had to do absent vaccines and costly therapeutics and denying that they have achieved better covid numbers than the US is the height of tunnel vision.
Given that Biden himself admitted that the federal government can’t solve the covid problem, they know full well that they are at the end of the ropes, are on the verge of losing one lawsuit after another over their strategies, and states that have resisted federal management of covid are doing no worse and in some cases better than states that have embraced the feds have managed covid including economic and QOL issues. The mere fact that migration out of the north and CA and democratically run states speaks volumes about how the American people think the feds have handled covid.
After Fauci having to be told that vax mandates are not happening for US airline passengers, the Administration is now in full retreat on covid.
Vaccines didn’t create Omicron, and Omicron doesn’t descend from Delta. There’s a theory (caution) that it came from lab mice, but we don’t know the exact origin. You cannot possibly claim we have this variant or others because of vaccines. Are you suggesting B.1.1.7 (Alpha) was caused by vaccines? Oops, it predates vaccines. Indeed the original D->G mutation made the virus more infectious early in the pandemic. Viruses mutate. Could Merck’s pill accelerate this? Yes. But there’s no evidence that vaccines have done so.
Here’s a great comprehensive look at Ivermectin. It really did look promising a year ago! But early data didn’t pan out, and some of the evidence was quite shoddy. https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted
Again, the TOGETHER trail was huge and found no benefit. It’s not particularly harmful, take it if you want, but it’s no miracle cure. I am *helping* your side by pointing to fluvoxamine but you can’t argue that it’s a big pharma conspiracy when the best trial showing iveermectin has no benefit (also by the way there’s no good theory on why it SHOULD work either) also showed that another low cost and widely available drug DOES.
I would sort of dispute your characterization of Israel as a mess, cases there are just rising, it may be a mess for other reasons (the Mideast is messy in many ways!) but not because of vaccination.
As for VAERS, look, when 80% of 75 year olds are vaccinated, there are going to be health issues reported. People die every day, and they are going to die even when they’re vaccinated, because there are other causes of death than Covid. That doesn’t mean those are in any way related to vaccines. You aren’t making a serious argument that understands maths.
@Tim Dunn – I have written consistently criticizing government policy for failing to address immunity from prior infection. Recovery from covid plus one mRNA shot is far better than a J&J shot, but the latter is considered vaccinated while the former is not. So strange. But what of it in terms of my arguments here?
@Gary –
Just like all the rest of you single-sided narratives you can’t answer the question about debate. Why is it so hard for you to say “I would welcome a debate”. Instead you ignore it just like mainstream does.
Everything you just stated above is completely obliterated by experts I agree with. I can post tons of links here disputing the claims you made. So I’m not going to continue this with you as you have your sources and I have mine.
Let the record show here that Gary is unable to answer a simple question that he would welcome a national debate to help heal the great divide we have in the USA and Worldwide.
You shouldve just titled the article “Why Fauci is wrong… always”
That dirtbag costs Americans a lot of undue panic, wages, and freedoms due to his incompetence
This one is just too good not to share….
Covid-19: Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer’s vaccine trial
bmj dot com/content/375/bmj.n2635
One hundred percent agree with mandatory vaccinations. And skip any exceptions. This is not a government service so private companies can mandate. This will definitely control the spread.
This Todd f*cknut must be really out of breath continually railing against the vaccines every day…of course since the unvaccinated make up the vast, vast majority of hospitalizations and Covid deaths these days, he sure is totally on to something…douche
@Todd – I have never shied away from a debate. I was a member of the national championship CEDA team in college, placed in out rounds of the national finals as a freshman even. Bring it.
@Gary –
Good to hear you would be up for a debate. So many people I have asked the same question to but don’t have the balls to reply! Unfortunately, probably will never happen. We have tried for years with the networks, way before Covid to discuss Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated and the issues with vaccines but only crickets.
Perhaps one day….
Corrections to several errors in Gary’s original post:
–Boosters have been shown to only work for 9 weeks against Omicron. So no thanks. I’m double-jabbed, and that is MY LIMIT.
–More tests available won’t help… cuz the same-day tests aren’t sensitive enough to detect transmissible Omicron, while the PCR tests show positive long after infectiousness ends.
In general, Gary, I appreciated & agreed with your articulate oppositions to travel mandates.
Some additional oppositions:
–It’s harmful to the airline industry (reducing their customer base), and by extension, the whole travel industry. It’s a sneaky “soft-shutdown”.
–Public health is NOT the nation’s highest priority. It’s Fauci’s priority, but not the U.S. priority. Good grief, all 180 countries on Earth now know that the U.S. can’t surmount biowarfare. We’re toast under a REAL attack from REAL enemies.
–It is time to make decisions re: OUR OWN RISK. I feel sorry for the first commenter who says he’d feel safer if he knew his plane-mates were 100% vaccinated. He’s brainwashed that 3 jabs still won’t keep him safe enough.
–Vaccines against colds are foolish. I suggest people treat their body/immune system with more respect, & stop mutilating them w/ mRna and Crispy Cremes and cigarettes. Don’t take antibiotics for every cold. And don’t take vaccines for every cold, either. Coughdrops will work.
I watched a Fauci interview today and he was obviously condescending, saying he knows the reason people aren’t vaxxed/boosted is because they’re inclined to resist. He obviously had no understanding/tolerance of religious objections, and he’s completely oblivious to the people who’ve studied the benefits/risk of the vaccine and chosen “no jab”. Based on the superior air he demonstrated today, he’s no longer credible. Both the CDC and the FDA are tainted now.
It’s embarrassing that New York fired 31,000 healthcare workers, and now Biden’s gonna “fix” it with 1000 national guard medics. SMH
I’m going on a cruise in 2 weeks. A full week of no TV scare-tactics!
@Gary Leff — “Here’s a great comprehensive look at Ivermectin. It really did look promising a year ago! But early data didn’t pan out, and some of the evidence was quite shoddy.
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-much-more-than-you-wanted”
Here we go *again* … I’m familiar with this report, but, as in all things relating to “science,” there will be detractors from *both* sides! What one needs to understand is that, in today’s *totally politicized* world, even so-called RCTs are *not* always so “scientific” when they’re biased with prescribed agendas! Recall those early “clinical trials” that purportedly “debunked” HCQ cocktails as being effective treatments, only to be withdrawn from the likes of Lancet after getting *truly* “fact checked”? The same situation exists with respect to attacks against Ivermectin! At the stage of the pandemic, when Ivermectin was being purportedly “tested” through “clinical trials,” there were many special interest groups that favored sabotaging Ivermectin from consideration, for obvious reasons because of its extremely lower costs vs. experimental cellular gene therapies that comprise those so-called (*not* real) “vaccines”! This, of course, translated into much lower $$$ earnings for those Big Pharma companies as compared to pushing their “vaccines.” Furthermore, in order for those “vaccines” to be able to get to market under EUA, other therapeutics such as HCQ cocktails and Ivermectin *had* to get disparaged because EUA states that there can be no other reasonable alternatives already available to treat said disease! If HCQ cocktails and Ivermectin were to get FDA approvals, then those “vaccines” could *not* get their EUAs. But now that those “vaccines” have been so prolifically distributed worldwide and mucho $$$ made by those Big Pharma companies worldwide, some *new* therapeutics are now getting FDA considerations and even approvals despite also costing mucho $$$ as well … ever wonder *why* this is occurring at this time?
In a prior post long ago, I had already debunked some of those “clinical” trials that claimed to themselves debunk Ivermectin, so I don’t want to rehash those points again, but one key point stood out — when doing clinical trials, it will make sense to actually try and actually duplicate what frontline doctors worldwide have been prescribing and using successfully for so long, right? But what I found, after reading so many of those trial reports that purport to debunk Ivermectin, is that their clinical trials test conditions and parameters were *no where close* to what frontline doctors were using worldwide to successfully treat their patients and save hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives! This told me that such “trials” were *not* about proving/disproving Ivermectin’s efficacy from a truly scientific perspective, but were designed from the outset to create an outcome that would try to contradict what successful track records had already been proven from worldwide usages!
For example, when those trials used a lower dosage and shorter time duration than actually practiced in frontline treatments, what conclusions can we make? Furthermore, everyone wants to look at Ivermectin alone as *the* treatment, whereas frontline treatments often use Ivermectin in conjunction with *other* components that *together* create the efficacy results that have been attained! This points out a fundamental *flaw* with how clinical trials apply that legacy “scientific method” — medical treatments are often more effective when used as a cocktail integrated with other *supporting* components, rather than alone just by itself! Clinical trials, by adhering to “controlled experimentation” requirements of the “scientific method,” can *not* readily duplicate such integrated forms of treatments in real life, and so *fail* at what should have been their *honest* research objectives!
So the bottom line is — just because some “clinical trials” purport to debunk Ivermectin, I do *not* trust those trials when they do *not* even try to duplicate the *actual* integrated protocols that were used to successfully treat millions of cases worldwide! If I had to choose between trusting such clinical trials vs. the direct experiences of thousands of frontline doctors/nurses worldwide, I’m more inclined to trust those who actually *treat* those masses of patients, rather than some academic ivory tower bureaucrats that run agenda-driven clinical trials!
In countries where malaria-fighting drugs & ivermectin are more frequently prescribed, the trend CONTINUES that they have fewer deaths from Covid-19 than the U.S does. Why the U.S is so inequipped to prevent death from Covid needs to be the topic of SERIOUS RESEARCH.
Also: It is fairly clear at this point that the airline industry is being significantly affected by staffing shortages due to covid illness/exposure. Conversely, the CRUISE industry has a markedly lower rate of infection/exposure among its staff. I’m convinced that AIRLINES are the super-spreader in this nation. In the early days, the airline industry touted studies re: the effectiveness of plane cabin air filtration against Covid. But now, plane air filtration systems are clearly not working for Omicron. An airline executive yesterday again touted the outdated studies… all while thousands of flights are being cancelled daily due to staffing (covid) issues.
@Lindy — “Why the U.S is so inequipped to prevent death from Covid needs to be the topic of SERIOUS RESEARCH.”
No mystery at all about this issue! As I stated in my reply post just above yours, it all has to do with $$$ for Big Pharma and the way EUAs work — in order to approve EUAs for those experimental cellular gene therapies (ie, Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, J&J), world proven successful therapeutics such as HCQ cocktails and Ivermectin had to be dismissed, since EUAs are predicated upon no other alternatives being available to treat the given ailment (in this case COVID-19). The “vaccines or nothing” policy is based on this premise, thus incurring so much UN-necessary excessive deaths. Why? Those cellular gene therapies do *not* act like legacy vaccines because they are *not* neutralizing and only target a very specific spike protein, rather than the whole spectrum of proteins associated with SARS-CoV-2 … by *not* killing off the coronavirus, those cellular gene therapies actually “induce” mutations to occur, thus giving rise to so many variants … so the more jabs given worldwide, the more mutations are induced … those with co-morbidities thus have much greater opportunities to succumb to those variants!
———————
“I’m convinced that AIRLINES are the super-spreader in this nation.”
You might be confusing the infections experienced by ground-based personnel sick outs vs. flight crews, as well as flight crew shortages that resulted from coercive and insane “vaccine” mandates that resulted in staff shortages due to non-conformance firings or side-linings. I have not yet come across any studies that confirm mass infections being spread in airline cabins. Cruise companies, being much smaller in staff size than airlines, have not been as visibly reported in the media, except when they experience so many instances of onboard ship infections, despite 95+ (or even 100) percent “vaccination” rates among passengers and crews.
Happy New Year!! Flurona has arrived. First case reported. Welcome to 2022 and more boosters!!!