This is a pretty remarkable quote considering it comes from Fauci's partner in promoting COVID lockdowns. I have to give the guy credit for having the courage to admit they maybe they didn't look at things correctly. Folks in gov don't often admit something went wrong under their watch and try to learn from the mistake.
“So you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. You attach a zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never quite recovered.” This, he explained, “is a public-health mindset,” which was “another mistake we made.”
Francis Collins Has Regrets, but Too Few
The former NIH chief and promoter of Covid lockdowns now says his view was too ‘narrow.’
By The Editorial Board
Dec. 29, 2023
Hard to believe it’s been four years since the first reports of a mysterious virus spreading in Wuhan, China. Now comes a Covid lockdown mea culpa—if you can call it that—from former National Institutes of Health chief Francis Collins.
“If you’re a public-health person and you’re trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is, and that is something that will save a life,” Dr. Collins explained in a Covid discussion this summer for Braver Angels, an outfit that aims to bridge political divides. A video of the discussion surfaced this week on X.com.
Dr. Collins continued: “So you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. You attach a zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never quite recovered.” This, he explained, “is a public-health mindset,” which was “another mistake we made.”
This was precisely the argument we made on March 20, 2020 (“Rethinking the Virus Shutdown”), for politicians not to accept the lockdown advice of public-health officials as gospel. They think too narrowly, and political leaders have to consider the larger consequences of policies for the public good.
Dr. Collins’s mini-mea culpa still doesn’t make up for his collaboration with Anthony Fauci to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated a strategy of focused protection on the elderly and vulnerable while letting younger people at lower risk continue with their lives. Nor does the former NIH head apologize for trying to censor different health-policy advice.
He acknowledged in the Covid discussion that the declaration “could have been a great opportunity for a broad scientific discussion about the pros and cons” of focused protection. But then he blames the declaration’s authors for “short-circuiting” debate by trying to change national policy without first consulting public-health officials. Who really shut down that debate?
Soon after the declaration was published online, Dr. Collins emailed Dr. Fauci calling for a “quick and devastating published take down of its premise.” Within a few days, myriad public-health associations attacked the declaration. Dr. Collins said during the Covid panel that he regretted using the words “take down,” but not calling the declaration “dangerous.”
The lockdowns did tremendous harm that we are still living with. That and the effort by Drs. Collins and Fauci to shut off all debate is a major reason the public has lost trust in public-health experts.