Dr. Fauci under scrutiny over mixed messages on masks, vaccines
Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Dr. Scott Atlas gives reaction and analysis on 'Hannity'
White House adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci told MSNBC on Sunday it's "still not" acceptable for Americans to eat indoors, even after they've received the COVID-19 vaccine.
His comments come after he and other government experts have seemingly moved the pandemic goal posts for some time now.
"Drinking indoors, restaurants, and bars. Is that OK now?" host Mehdi Hasan asked the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director.
FAUCI SHIFTS HERD IMMUNITY GOALPOSTS, NOW SAYS AS MUCH AS 90% MAY BE NEEDED TO HALT CORONAVIRUS
"No, it's still not," Fauci said. "For the simple reason that level of infection, the dynamics of infection in the community are still really disturbingly high."
Fauci said there were 80,000 new infections recorded on Sunday, whereas the number had been hovering around 60,000 to 75,000 in recent days.
"If you are vaccinated, please remember that you still have to be careful and not get involved in crowded situations, particularly indoors where people are not wearing masks," he said.
Some viewers and social media users took Fauci’s advice and said they plan to avoid indoor dining, but exasperated critics are fuming that Fauci is prolonging shutdown measures. Some fear he may be discouraging people from getting their shots because it doesn’t sound like life will return to normal if they do.
"Get off the airwaves," former NFL quarterback Matt Leinart tweeted.
Former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows linked to the clip and said Democrats had "zero intention of giving back their newfound control, even if you're vaccinated."
"He's doing harm at this point," Fox News contributor Guy Benson tweeted about a similar interview Fauci recently gave.
In some unscripted remarks at his Mar-a-Lago beach club in Palm Beach over the weekend, former Trump joked to a Republican donor gathering that Fauci would probably soon advise people to wear "five" masks.
"Have you ever seen anybody that is so full of crap?" Trump wondered.
During their interview, Hasan confronted Fauci about comments he made last March, when he said Americans had "no need" to wear masks like Asian countries had been doing. Fauci told Hasan that he made those comments because at the time there was a mask shortage and they needed to save them for health care workers, they had no evidence that masks worked, and he and his fellow White House task force members didn’t know asymptomatic people were spreading the virus.
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"If you change with the data," he said, "you’re not flip flopping."
Evidence shared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found those who are vaccinated are less likely to have asymptomatic infection and potentially transmit the virus to others.