The Key Moments When Dr. Anthony Fauci Contradicted Himself During Heated COVID Hearing

For­mer Nation­al Insti­tute of Aller­gy and Infec­tious Dis­eases (NIAID) Direc­tor Dr. Antho­ny Fau­ci con­tra­dict­ed sev­er­al of his past state­ments from the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic when he tes­ti­fied before Con­gress on Monday.

The for­mer top pan­dem­ic advis­er to two pres­i­den­tial admin­is­tra­tions, who retired from NIAID in 2022 after near­ly four decades at the helm, faced sharp ques­tions about the rever­sals from Repub­li­can mem­bers of the House Select Sub­com­mit­tee on the Coro­n­avirus Pandemic.

Social Distancing Mandate

Fau­ci acknowl­edged that the six-foot social dis­tanc­ing man­date was not based on sci­en­tif­ic data or clin­i­cal tri­als. He stat­ed: “When I say it was not based in sci­ence, I meant a prospec­tive clin­i­cal tri­al to deter­mine whether six-foot was bet­ter than three- was bet­ter than 10.” Fau­ci also said the CDC made the deci­sion on the man­date, and they had dis­cus­sions about it in the White House.

Masking for Children

Fau­ci pre­vi­ous­ly endorsed uni­ver­sal mask­ing, even call­ing for it to be imposed on school­child­ren as an “extra step of cau­tion” in a 2021 inter­view. How­ev­er, he admit­ted on Mon­day that “there was no study that did masks on kids.”

Vaccine Opposition as “Ideological Bullshit”

In a 2020 audio­book record­ing, Fau­ci stat­ed: “It’s been proven that when you make it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple in their lives, they lose their ide­o­log­i­cal bulls–t and they get vac­ci­nat­ed.” On Mon­day, Fau­ci said “that’s not what I was refer­ring to” and the objec­tions to COVID vac­cines “were not,” in fact, “ide­o­log­i­cal bulls–t.”

Lab Leak Theory

Fau­ci denied par­tic­i­pat­ing in efforts to down­play and cen­sor pro­po­nents of the lab leak the­o­ry, stat­ing: “Not on my part.” How­ev­er, emails showed he and for­mer NIH Direc­tor Dr. Fran­cis Collins worked to pro­duce a study debunk­ing the the­o­ry and called for a “quick and dev­as­tat­ing” take­down of epi­demi­ol­o­gists who opposed lockdowns.

Vaccine Effectiveness

Fau­ci claimed vac­cines “have saved hun­dreds of thou­sands of Amer­i­cans” but acknowl­edged their abil­i­ty to pre­vent infec­tion and trans­mis­sion waned over time. He said: “It did not pre­vent trans­mis­sion when the abil­i­ty to pre­vent infec­tion waned.”