Photo via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0), NIH
December 28, 2020, 12:33 pm*
Senator Marco Rubio, who has made a name for himself this year for attacking COVID-19 restrictions and mask-wearing, is getting scorched for a tweet attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci following his receipt of the Pfizer vaccine. Rubio tweeted claiming that the head of the White House coronavirus pandemic task for “lied about masks in March” and accused him of “distorting” the threshold for herd immunity via vaccine.
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In reality, Dr. Fauci has changed his advice on certain matters based on new information about a new virus like a scientist should. In March, he advised people against hoarding masks because, thanks largely to Donald Trump throwing out Obama-era pandemic protocols, hospital workers faced a severe shortage.
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Once the mask shortage was on its way to being alleviated and it became clear that widespread mask-wearing would slow the spread of the virus, Fauci began to encourage it. You might compare this to how scientists change their mind about asbestos once new information about the substance came to light.
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Another example might be the fact that Rubio has been following Trump’s lead on downplaying the pandemic for many months but then got the vaccine for the novel coronavirus, posting a photo of himself receiving it on December 19.
Rubio now seems to be accusing Fauci of tricking the American public after he raised the estimate of how many people in the U.S. would need to get the vaccine to hypothetically achieve herd immunity. The doctor recently shifted this number from between 60 and 70 percent to between 70 and 85 percent, even as high as 90.
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In interviews, Fauci has admitted to not knowing for sure how high this threshold would need to be. Different viruses have different thresholds for herd immunity, with some needing only around 60 percent to fade out from a population and others requiring over 95 percent population immunity.
Because we’re dealing with a rather new virus that we just now got a vaccine for, and because herd immunity doesn’t exist without vaccines, it’s impossible to know for sure what it will take for SARS-CoV-2 to become history. All we know is that it’s going to take a lot of us, and Fauci admitted to shifting his stated estimate over time in order to encourage people to get the vaccine.
“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 told The New York Times. “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.”
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Manipulative? Maybe, but still better than spending months engaging in COVID-19 “hoax” rhetoric and egging on anti-maskers before cutting the line in front of hospital workers to get the vaccine. And Twitter users aren’t going to let Rubio forget it.
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“So you elbowed your way to the front of the vaccine line and now you’re yelling back that it’s not something other people need?” wrote historian Kevin M. Kruse. “Is there a Bible verse for that you could hide behind?”
“You supported the guy who said it would go away when the weather got warm,” Patricia Arquette reminded the senator.
*First Published: December 28, 2020, 12:25 pm
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