Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to disavow business, church, and school closures during his testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic on Monday while continuing to justify mask and vaccine mandates during a line of questioning with Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX).
“His claims of ignorance about key decisions — whether it’s the arbitrary six-foot distancing rule, school closures, or funding dangerous research in Chinese labs — are both disturbing and unacceptable. Fauci personifies the systemic failure within our federal agencies, where passing the buck is the norm, not the exception,” the congressman continued.
During his line of questioning, Cloud went through a list of coronavirus mitigation measures that Fauci supported throughout the pandemic, beginning with business closures, asking if that was justified.
“Early on, when 5,000 people were dying a day, yes,” Fauci said.
“Church closures,” Cloud said, as Fauci said, “Same thing,” essentially justifying stay-at-home orders and school closures.
“These were important when we were trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that were occurring early on. How long you kept them going is debatable,” Fauci said as Cloud continued to go down his list.
“Mask mandates for adults, mask mandates for children, mask mandates for children under five,” the congressman said.
“Going back to what I said before, all of that is in the context of that time,” Fauci said, defending his answer. Cloud then asked Fauci specifically if there is scientific evidence supporting these things — specifically, scientific evidence supporting masks for children under five.
Fauci then admitted that there “was no study that did masks on kids before.”
“You couldn’t do the study. You had to respond to an epidemic that was killing four to five thousand Americans,” Fauci said before Cloud continued on, listing vaccine mandates for employees, vaccine mandates for students, and vaccine mandates for the military.
Fauci then said that vaccines save lives, which prompted Cloud to ask if vaccines stopped anyone from contracting the virus.
“In the beginning, it clearly prevented infection in a certain percentage of people, but the durability of its ability to prevent infection was not long; it was measured in months,” Fauci said, also admitting that it “became clear that it did not prevent transmission when the ability to prevent infection waned.”
WATCH:
Cloud took to social media after his line of questioning to the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) chief, writing, “I asked Dr. Fauci a simple yes or no question: Did he believe school, business, and church closures, mask mandates, and stay-at-home orders were justified?”
“He refused to disavow those measures, despite knowing they were ineffective,” the congressman added.
WATCH the entire hearing below: