In March 2020, I was working at home preparing for an arbitration against Tesla. My sister called and said, “they just locked down Mama.” Those words were my first real clue that COVID-19 was about to change all of our lives.
“They” were the owners of the live-in care facility that provided a safe place for my mother. In 2014, at age 82, Mildred was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease. My sister and I had spent the last six years in “the long goodbye,” taking charge of Mom’s life and care.
“They” were European immigrants who owned and operated a lovely house in Scottsdale that my sister had found for Mom. They knew more about COVID-19 than we did. And “they” locked my mother down early, before it could invade their space of elderly Alzheimer’s patients.
I share this personal note because I am and always will be grateful that “they” - Janine and Adrian - locked my Mom down before the horror of COVID-19 touched her. As someone whose elderly loved one survived COVID, I will be eternally grateful to Dr. Fauci for everything he did to sound the alarm WHEN he did.
European countries shut down weeks before America did. By March 15th, in a single 24-hour period in Italy, 250 people died. Dr. Fauci sounded the alarm on media shows that weekend and was already consulting with health professionals around the world on what to expect.
When Dr. Fauci issued his “mitigation recommendations” in March 2020, he saved millions of lives. Without masks, social distancing and shelter-in-place measures, many more people would have died in America.
The pandemic was particularly devastating to our elders. According to one source, 122,707 elders 85 years and older died in America in 2020 because of COVID-19. The hospital and nursing home crisis in the state of New York was horrifying in how badly Governor Cuomo responded to the pandemic.
In my age group at the time, in comparison, it is reported that 45,377 succumbed to COVID-19 in that first year. The rate of death for my age group was 107; the rate of death for those 85 years and older was 1,842.90. Had my 88-year-old Mom contracted COVID-19 in that first year, it very likely would have been a death sentence.
For the families, health care workers and caregivers who lost a beloved elder, I can only imagine the level of helplessness they felt as the disease ravaged our country. Many healthcare workers sacrificed their lives to save their patients, with higher mortality rates among Black and Asian healthcare workers over 50 years old. Their sacrifices still have not been appropriately appreciated, and their stories have not been adequately told as we moved on from the pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for 36 years, since 1984, was the best person in 2020 to create a strategy to minimize the loss of life. He joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1968. He was the longest serving director of the NIAID when the pandemic hit us in 2020.
Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic was not his first rodeo. He dealt with the AIDS epidemic. While taking criticism for the slow response of the Reagan administration, he was later credited with developing the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief which saved millions of lives around the world. Then, there was Ebola, when he personally treated patients in the United States while championing the deployment of resources into West Africa to fight that disease.
Dr. Fauci’s greatest challenge was dealing with COVID-19 under Chief Crazy Trump for three years. As his diary shows, he knew that Trump was a total nut job. Dr. Fauci had to navigate not getting fired by Chief Crazy while maintaining a level of integrity and credibility with the public. Given his successful survival of Trump Part 1, it is unbelievable that people are challenging him about decisions he made six years ago.
To understand the current controversy is to acknowledge that Senator Rand Paul targeted and started harassing Dr. Fauci in 2020. Senator Paul has challenged Dr. Fauci on everything from
masks,
risk of reinfection,
the state of the pandemic and
the origin of the coronavirus.
From 2020 to 2026, Paul’s attacks on Dr. Fauci have continued unabated and escalated.
“What happens when he [Sen. Rand Paul] gets out and accuses me of things that are completely untrue is that all of a sudden that kindles the crazies out there and I have threats upon my life, harassment of my family and my children with obscene phone calls, because people are lying about me.”
Paul wanted Dr. Fauci fired in 2022. Paul had a website which included the message “Fire Fauci” that he used to raise money for his cause. He has also been on a mission to have Dr. Fauci criminally prosecuted for years. Paul has made multiple referrals for prosecution of Dr. Fauci to the Department of Justice.
In July 2023, Paul announced an “official criminal referral” to the Department of Justice seeking to have Dr. Fauci prosecuted.
In July 2025, Paul announced that he “renewed his referral” for criminal prosecution of Dr. Fauci to the Department of Justice because President Joe Biden pardoned Dr. Fauci.
SIDENOTE: Why Dr. Fauci should be prosecuted for something Joe Biden’s staff allegedly did is beyond logic and truly nonsense.
On July 29, 2026, Dr. Fauci appeared before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent. While some folks were shocked or outraged by this, there are multiple good reasons for Dr. Fauci to invoke his constitutional right not to say anything that might support a criminal prosecution against him.
“Taking the Fifth” is a bedrock principle in our legal system that any lawyer will tell you is always the wisest choice whether you are in court, on the street with an inquiring police officer, or surrounded by ravenous wolves in the halls of Congress.
Calling Dr. Fauci to testify under oath yet again before Congress about a pandemic that happened six years ago that we survived is clearly a ploy by Sen. Paul to create grounds for prosecution for perjury.
Not only is Dr. Fauci at risk of being prosecuted for perjury by Trump’s men at the Department of Justice, there are also no less than seventeen (17) state attorneys general “investigating” his role for “mismanagement” in the pandemic. He is under subpoena in three states for investigation whether he personally profited from his health guidance during the pandemic.
In the words of one commentator, “the political debate about COVID-19 has evolved into a bitter culture war” and Dr. Fauci has become a lightning rod for right-wing politicians. The level of disrespect in the debate toward him reflects the Republicans’ extreme desire to persecute political enemies in a season of lawlessness throughout the federal government.
Under these circumstances, Dr. Fauci’s only option is to rely on his constitutional right to remain silent. It is crystal clear that anything he says can and will be used against him.
What is also really important, and offensive, is that within months of seizing control of the federal government in 2025, Trump and his henchmen RFK and Elon Musk cut more than $500 million in funding from the NIAID’s budget for research on allergies and diseases. The deep cuts in funding impacts research on infectious diseases, mental health conditions, and disparities in health conditions for communities of color. They cancelled research grants for cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s, contamination of public drinking water, reproductive healthcare, HIV, and of course, vaccines.
These massive and unprecedented cuts have created the backdrop for the destruction of public health in America. A report by Protect Our Care finds that RFK’s decisions have wreaked havoc on America’s public health system. Measle outbreaks are back, participants in clinical trials have been left hanging and tens of thousands of federal employees have been on a roller-coaster ride for their employment.
Scapegoating Dr. Fauci will not make us safer when the next pandemic hits or when there is another public health crisis. In fact, persecuting Dr. Fauci is a publicity stunt to distract Americans from the real consequences of Trump’s Project 2025 agenda to
restrict access to healthcare for adults and children,
eliminate vaccines
end early childhood development programs and
expand children’s access to guns.
In the words of one Bay Area activist, “evil is winning” in America.
https://www.axios.com/2020/03/15/fauci-coronavirus-overreaction
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1382342/number-covid-deaths-us-by-age/
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1382357/covid-death-rates-us-by-age/
https://www.britannica.com/topic/National-Institutes-of-Health
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Anthony-Fauci
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Presidents-Emergency-Plan-for-AIDS-Relief
https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2014/10/fauci-quelling-ebolas-perfect-storm-in-west-africa-requires-global-mobilization
https://www.science.org/content/article/why-nihs-anthony-fauci-treating-ebola-patients-himself
https://www.propublica.org/article/cuomo-undercounted-nursing-home-deaths-by-as-much-as-50-report-finds
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/23/you-are-not-listening-fauci-tells-rand-paul-during-senate-hearing.html
https://www.newsnationnow.com/health/coronavirus/sen-rand-paul-files-criminal-referral-fauci-covid-origins/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8776280/
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/cost-trump-administrations-attacks-research-funding
https://projects.propublica.org/nih-cuts-research-lost-trump/
https://projects.propublica.org/federal-health-worker-cuts-rfk-trump-administration/
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