In April 2009 through 2010 the H!N! “Swine Flu” moved through the United States. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that the outbreak caused 60.8 million cases in the US, 274,000 hospitalizations, and 12,469 deaths.
In September 2009, 593 people had already been confirmed dead in the US as a result of the H1N1 flu but, a calm, unalarmed, relaxed Dr. Anthoney Fauci downplayed the outbreak and said during an interview that all people needed to do is “use good judgment.”
M. Catharine Evans from the American Thinker found the video:
Dr. Fauci: “Parents should not send their kids to school if they’re sick, if you’re sick don’t go to work … avoid places where there are people who are sick and coughing, now that’s a difficult thing to do,” he said. “…You can’t isolate yourself from the rest of the world for the whole flu season.”
Evans wrote:
It’s peculiar that nowhere in the 2009 video does Dr. Fauci suggest that in order to alleviate the stress on hospital supplies we “force, uh, delay, if not cancel anything that’s elective, I mean any medical or surgical procedures that need to be done on an elective basis should not be done.” Dr. Fauci’s statement to NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on March 20, 2020 and his obvious slip of the tongue using the word “force” reveals just how much influence Dr. Fauci has over our daily lives. To date, hospitals, imaging centers, and outpatient departments across the country have cancelled non-emergent testing and surgical procedures.
Additionally, nowhere in the 2009 interview does Dr. Fauci specifically mention restaurants and bars as hot spots for the transmission of the H1N1 virus as he does in his recent interview with Yahoo News: “When I see crowded bars and crowded restaurants, it is a little bit unnerving,” Fauci said. “It’s clear that those are the situations that put people very much at risk.” Talk about wielding power. Take a look around the country. Local and state officials have heeded Fauci’s “unnerving” concern and ordered restaurants to close their dining areas, or adhere to a 10-person limit. In cities and small towns everywhere, the restaurant industry, which includes owners, suppliers, chefs, line cooks, waitstaff, and bartenders, has been decimated.
The question is this, was Dr. Fauci taking a more measured approach during the H1N1 outbreak and has learned from his 2009 mistakes? Or is he an Obama holdover giving the President misinformation?
It could also be that the coronavirus spreads easier than H1N1 however, in a world where Democrats are willing to let Americans die to try and ram a partisan bill through congress we must ask these questions.
