Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to rule out closing businesses, churches and schools during testimony before the House Select Subcommittee on COVID-19 on Monday, while continuing to justify mask-wearing and vaccination mandates during a series of questions from Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas).
“Dr. Fauci’s testimony before this subcommittee highlights a shocking lack of accountability,” Cloud said in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News after Dr. Fauci’s testimony.
“His alleged ignorance of important decisions like the arbitrary six-foot distancing rule, school closures, and funding for dangerous research in Chinese labs is disturbing and unacceptable. Fauci embodies the systemic failure of a federal agency where blame-shifting has become the rule rather than the exception,” the congressman continued.
In his questions, Cloud listed the coronavirus mitigation measures that Fauci has supported throughout the pandemic, including business closures, and asked whether they were justified.
“Early on, we were seeing 5,000 people dying a day,” Fauci said.
“Closing churches,” Cloud said, and Fauci said, “the same thing,” essentially justifying stay-at-home orders and school closures.
“These were important in trying to stop the tsunami of deaths that was happening early on. How long they lasted is up for debate,” Fauci said as Cloud continued to read off the list.
“Mask mandate for adults, mask mandate for children, mask mandate for children under 5,” the lawmaker said.
“Going back to what I said before, it was all in the context of the situation at the time,” Fauci defended his answer. Cloud then asked Fauci if there was scientific evidence to back these things up, specifically whether there was scientific evidence to back up mask wearing for children under the age of 5.
Fauci later acknowledged that “there have been no studies done on children wearing masks.”
“We couldn’t do the research. We had to respond to an epidemic that was killing 4,000 to 5,000 Americans,” Fauci said, as Cloud went on to list mandatory vaccinations for employees, mandatory vaccinations for students and mandatory vaccinations for the military.
Fauci then said the vaccine saves lives, leading Cloud to ask if the vaccine prevents people from contracting the virus.
“Initially, the vaccines clearly protected a certain percentage of people from getting the virus, but the protection didn’t last long, it was measured in months,” Fauci said, acknowledging that “when that protection wore off, it became clear that it no longer protected you from getting the virus.”
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After questioning the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Cloud posted on social media, “I asked Dr. Fauci a simple yes or no question: does he believe school/business/church closures, mask mandates and stay-at-home orders are justified?”
“He knew these measures were ineffective, yet he refused to deny them,” the lawmaker added.
I asked Dr. Fauci a simple “yes” or “no” question about whether he believed school, business and church closures, mask mandates and stay-at-home orders were justified.
He knew these measures were ineffective, yet refused to deny them. pic.twitter.com/4DjIrdg2sk
— Rep. Michael Cloud (@RepCloudTX) June 3, 2024
Watch the entire hearing below:
