Last night, I wrote about Dr. Angelique coetzee from South Africa, who was responsible for identifying the Omicron variant. She advised people to not panic or freak out. She said they only discovered it this week, so they didn’t have the data yet to make a judgment as to whether it wouldn’t be covered by the existing vaccines, as was the immediate speculation because it was heavily mutated. What Coetzee did note was that was positive was that of the cases she saw, in her words, the symptoms were “extremely mild.” While she said that could change, that’s what they had seen so far.
However, that hasn’t stopped folks from going off half-cocked. Here’s what Dr. Anthony Fauci said today on ABC News’ “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.
Stephanopoulos asked if we knew if the new variant caused “more severe disease.”
Fauci responded:
And we don’t know that. In fact, we were on the phone with our South African colleagues, who have been incredibly good about being so transparent about what’s going on there, on Friday, and we’re meeting with them again today later — a little bit later on, in a couple of hours, to try and find out if the cases that they have identified that clearly are caused by this variant, what is the level of severity in that?
Hopefully, it will be light but, you know, South Africa has a relatively small proportion of the population that’s vaccinated. So you got to take that into the equation when you’re trying to figure out where this virus is really going and what its impact is going to be. But bottom line, George, we don’t know yet what the level of severity will be.
We do not have the Fauci filter to confirm what Coetzee actually said. That could change, however, as more information is gathered. Right now, Coetzee’s cases were mild. She cautioned them against having hasty reactions. Notice Fauci didn’t say that, when he must know what she has said. Fauci instead focused on the possibility it could be transmissible more easily and might evade current vaccines.
“Shouldn’t we expect to see more lockdowns or new lockdowns as well as more mandates?”
FAUCI: It’s too soon to tell. pic.twitter.com/is8U4gAaE1
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 28, 2021
Stephanopoulos asked, “Should we expect to be seeing more lockdowns again, new lockdowns, more mandates?”
Fauci responded, “You know, I don’t know, George. It’s really too early to say. We just really need to, as I’ve said so often, prepare for the worst.”
Fauci said it might not “go the route that people are saying.” Then added: “But you want to be prepared to do anything and everything.”
Prepare, they could be back with locks again. He’s not ruling it out. This despite the fact that they don’t even know anything at this point about the variant, but they should know that lockdowns make no sense and we’re not going to stand for it again. Even with knowing next to nothing, Fauci is already willing to say we must be prepared to “do anything and everything.”
How long has it been since we said “two weeks to flatten the curve”? These characters are trying to dictate our decisions. Yet here we find ourselves. Enough. We’re done.