Dr. Anthony Fauci’s words and demeanor last week spoke volumes about the dramatic change in the federal government’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic under President Biden. Gone were the days when Fauci would need to calibrate his words so as not to offend a mercurial president. Gone were the days when he would be kept away from White House briefings for long stretches out of fear he would speak an uncomfortable truth.
And gone were the days when scientific rigor would be undercut by Donald Trump’s peddling unsanctioned miracle cures, his mocking of masks and hectoring governors about lockdowns, or his issuing unfounded and ultimately disproven proclamations that the virus was about to disappear as if by magic.
The quackery, neglect, bravado and blame gaming have been replaced with a seriousness about a crisis that has cost more than 400,000 American lives.