America has had 20 long months with Dr. Anthony Fauci as the spokesman for the government’s COVID response, poorly explaining to us both the pandemic and the concurrent illogical restrictions.
Perhaps it’s time for some new voices.
The media dub Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general awaiting confirmation, a “firebrand” who’s “controversial.” He opposes mask and vaccine mandates — and so is erroneously called “anti-vax” by his foes.
But Ladapo came off as none of these things when I spoke to him for an exclusive interview last week. Calm and poised, Ladapo became a national figure after a clip of him saying the obvious — “The data do not support any clinical benefit for children in schools with mask mandates” — went viral.
In so many ways, the Nigerian-born Ladapo is the anti-Fauci. While the oft-criticized Ladapo has stayed consistent, frequent television guest Fauci has reversed himself many times on many details of pandemic policy without showing any data to support those reversals.
In August 2020, Fauci said, “The default position with K-12 schools should be to reopen them.” In November and December of that year, he praised reopening schools in New York City, though the city was in the middle of a COVID spike, famously saying: “Close bars, open schools.”
But in January, shortly after President Biden was sworn in, Fauci had a change of heart. After meeting with teachers unions that month, Fauci openly pushed for schools to wait on reopening until Biden’s recovery bill had passed.