Republican Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.) and Ken Buck (Colo.) criticized Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, for the impact of his social distancing recommendations, claiming that the stay-at-home policies informed by those recommendations have forced businesses, workers and corporations into economic turmoil.
“For Fauci, is it merely a societal or economic inconvenience that about 17 million workers are unemployed because of the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, with many more to come in the weeks and months ahead? The economic calamity lies largely with the origination of policies resulting from Fauci’s recommendations,” the lawmakers wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Examiner published Saturday.
Biggs and Buck, both members of the conservative Freedom Caucus and staunch allies ofPresident Trump, join others on the right in criticizing public health officials on the administration’s coronavirus task force. On Tuesday, Tucker Carlson, a conservative commentator on Fox News, said that Fauci “shouldn’t be making economic decisions.”
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“The longer government-imposed lockdowns go on, the more people will lose their jobs — millions more,” the lawmakers wrote. “Thousands of businesses will close their doors. The physical and emotional toll from this self-imposed economic destruction will be worse than the doomsday prophets projected.”
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Biggs and Buck said they are skeptical of the doctors’ expertise, noting their estimates have fluctuated in terms of projected deaths, spanning from a high of 240,000 deaths estimated in the past weeks to a recalibrated estimation of 60,000 deaths most recently.
Fauci has said the estimation has dropped because of Americans’ efforts to self-isolate and practice social distance.
“Surely, more revisions are to come,” the lawmakers said, adding that Birx’s method of counting coronavirus deaths, which include those who have the virus and died as a result of preexisting health issues “almost sounds as if she is trying to boost the fatality rate.”
The lawmakers conceded that Fauci and other public health experts deserve “some credit for mitigating the spread of this virus,” though they “should no longer be the primary voices at the table.”
But, Biggs and Buck added the economic damage caused by “stay at home” order across the potentially irreversible.
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JUST IN: GOP lawmakers say Fauci may be doing more harm than good amid coronavirus response https://t.co/Rj2wJ4DQxf pic.twitter.com/b5jHjEpp4r
— The Hill (@thehill) April 11, 2020
I did not smoke while pumping gas and my car did not blow up therefore gasoline is not flammable and the scientists are morons https://t.co/jekBjgrK1K
— kilgore trout, social scientist (@KT_So_It_Goes) April 11, 2020
Every one of these people who downplayed coronavirus from the start know exactly what they're doing.
They know that the insane efforts to contain coronavirus are the reason we might be lucky enough to "only" have 60,000 deaths, but they hope you're too stupid to realize it. https://t.co/ROLIR6cqh5
— Josh Jordan (@NumbersMuncher) April 11, 2020
Well, Dr. Fauci now is in the crosshairs for saying had isolation been done sooner, maybe more lives could have been saved. Trump fans have been digging up every loony conspiracy theory they can find on Dr. Fauci in preparation for making him enemy no. 1. Don’t be surprised if he gets the boot. Disloyalty to the king will not be tolerated.
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