by The WSJ Editorial Board
Anthony Fauci has never struggled to speak his mind. But now that he has left government, he is finally speaking at least some of the truth about government policies and Covid. For instance, the six-feet rule for social distancing “sort of just appeared” without a solid scientific basis. That’s one of the admissions that Members of Congress say the former National Institutes of Health potentate made this week in two days of closed-door testimony to the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
It’s not news that the six-feet rule lacked scientific rhyme or reason. A BMJ article in August 2020 explained as much. It noted that the virus’s transmissibility depends on many factors, including ventilation, the host’s viral load and symptoms, and the duration of exposure, among other things.
Officials nonetheless promoted the arbitrary rule because they didn’t trust Americans to understand scientific nuance or, for that matter, anything. Businesses, churches and schools that weren’t forced to close had to spend money reconfiguring their operations to comply with these government guidelines.
It’s nice of Dr. Fauci to acknowledge now that the rule lacked a scientific basis. But at the time he and other officials didn’t want to acknowledge this lest the public question other Covid nostrums. Dr. Fauci had already undermined public trust by confessing that his advice not to wear a mask early in the pandemic was guided by political expedience.
Read the full op-ed over at The Wall Street Journal:
It turns out the six-feet social-distancing rule had no scientific basis.https://t.co/2S86dYu4MM
— Wall Street Journal Opinion (@WSJopinion) January 12, 2024
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