Reading · Unreported Truths

Note: over the weekend, Senator Rand Paul released 1141 pages from what he is calling “Tony’s Diary.” These are private notes Dr. Anthony Fauci kept for himself as the Covid epidemic unfolded in 2020 and 2021, presumably in part because he planned to write a book about Covid and his role in it.

Sorry! Let me rephrase that. Covid and his role in fighting it.

The 1141-page headline number seriously exaggerates the amount of new material, as much of Fauci’s “diary” consists of cut-and-pasted articles about, yes, Fauci himself. (Not making that up. Couldn’t make it up.) Nonetheless, the diary does have a lot to sift through. I am working on a bigger piece on the grim story it reveals about Fauci and the pandemic.

But what does pop out almost from the first page is Fauci’s absolute lust for fame and his joy in becoming a one-name celebrity. He spends far more time discussing his reputation and his relationship with the press than epidemiology, virology, or Covid.

Neil Ferguson — the British epidemiologist who, for better or worse, made the earliest and most important predictions about Covid’s potential death toll — does not appear in the diary once.

Kim Kardashian does.

So, before I offer a serious look at how the “diary” helps explain Fauci and his role through the disaster that we all endured in 2020 and 2021, enjoy these moments. Keep in mind they are all from the first 150 pages or so, the first couple of months, as the epidemic was accelerating and serious scientists were grappling with a flood of data from all over the world on everything from hospitalizations to the structure of Sars-Cov-2 to transmissibility to potential treatments.

Fauci had other worries.

Try to laugh, so you don’t get too enraged.

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(Still fighting for the truth. Because the people in charge have other priorities.)

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