Anthony Fauci kept private diaries on the Covid period. These have been released by Senator Rand Paul a few days ago. There we learn straight from the horse's mouth that Covid has been a big show with lots of vested interested and very little science.

I want to start with what should be the conclusion, because it's the most important, which is that as the scandal will unravel, become public, then admitted, then recognized, then common knowledge, everybody will unanimously side on the team of the "good people" who condemn and object to such misconducts, the only problem with that being of course that most of those people were standing on the exact opposite side when the narrative was different and with the same fervour then in attacking those opposing it, that they have now to equally bash those who are so much embroiled into it that they make ideal scapegoats.

I was reading Hossenfelder pontifying earlier today about «scientists enforcing a common narrative to the detriment of truth» and how this is «a strong case of in-group behavior in academia that, I believe, most of them are not fully aware of» and about «misleading the public about the status of scientific research»...

That's all good and nice except that she was among the ones who provided positive feedback to the narrative, to the consensus, to the point of wishing people not vaccinated to die, or seeing this as a bonus, a deserved consequence of their stupidity.

Nothing new, people are like that. But in this particular case, I've always said that there is and will remain a simple and clear cut criterion to see who changed side with the wind, and who's been on the good side all along: have you taken the vaccine? Sabine did... She was lamenting her children couldn't get it soon enough at school. So it's interesting now to see her say that «This isn't just about Fauci». Indeed it's not. It's about her too.

Her and many others. Many, many others.

Well, for the record, I didn't take the vaccine. I was denouncing in various forms—this web included—what we had came to as a society, and as individuals, as people bathing in such a society. That earned quite a bit of enmity in the process. I got my share of name calling and "conspiracy theorist" accusations. I had them well before covid anyway, but on topics that nobody cares about. When it came to something that everybody cares about, I did get the occasion to see how the multitude, including of intelligent (meaning "educated") people, in fact, especially of "intelligent people", was able of the most submissive deference to power, authority and blind dogma, stupid rules and non-debatable principles, in short, to religion.

And now, all those people no doubt will display a big fervour of supporting the new status quo: corruption of science is bad. It doesn't matter that they were supporting the same corrupted science, with all the evidence that it was corrupted, before. And all this, just because everybody else did. Consensus. A powerful stuff.

Anyway, Toni's diaries. One didn't need them to see, to know, that this guy was phony and corrupt and orchestrating a gestion of the problem that was nowhere like close to the reality of the situation. It was clear already. One can refer to my arguments at the time. But it's satisfying to see this confirmed in the most pathetic, shameful and degrading possible way. It's not even that he was master-minding something under cover. He was the first victim of his adulation for himself.

It starts on Jan 3, after he comments quite at length on a US assassination of some Iranian force general and possible consequences of that, he also adds, as if in passing:

Also 44 unusual cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, China over the past couple of days. Etiology still unknown. Said to be a “viral pneumonia’ of unknown etiology. Flu ruled out. Cases linked to a seafood market. No human-to-human transmission documented at this time.

Most of it (I didn't read everything) seems to orbit around his obsession for recognition, for people loving him, in a rather girlish way. One can feel some insecurity. In the following, for instance, it is amazing how Trump manipulates him with basic flattery and obscene sycophancy. Notwithstanding, this delights the great scientist who can't get enough of approval and phony praises.

the President came in and the first thing he said as he looked at me was: “Anthony, you are really a famous guy. My good friend Lou Dobbs (see above) told me that you were the one of the smartest, knowledgeable and outstanding persons he knows. He then stayed for 20 minutes and asked most of his questions of me. I was surprised and very pleased and the Deputies were clearly stunned and impressed. When Trump finally left, he said: “Anthony, are we OK?” I said: “We are good”. He smiled and as he walked out of the room, he said “Thanks, again, Anthony. We are counting on you”.

This one would seem to betray first that he was not so insincere and manipulative as people want to make him look—it looks like he really believed he was some sort of super scientist—and also that this is authentic, a real diary. It's not easy to fake the misery of servility and self-delusion like this.

even though I did not intend to or like the idea of contradicting POTUS, but I need to stick with the science. They also had a tweet that went viral of me holding me head seemingly in disgust as the POTUS was talking. That wa not my intention.

One incident reported around HCQ:

In Task Force meeting had a big (unusual) argument with Peter Navarro who handed out a folder that he says shows studies that Hydroxychloroquine is effective in COVID. I strenuously objected and he then attacked me saying that I was the one who was against blocked travel from China when in fact I pushed the POTUS to do so. Weird guy!! VP and Marc Short acted like Peter was nuts.

The most compromising seem to be this statement where he recognizes i) that vaccines are not effective at all ["in fact not entirely true" he atones later] and ii) this should be hidden from the public, because iii) it would undermine their confidence in authority:

we had gotten [the CDC] pulled back from making the statement that the vaccines were not effective at all in preventing infection and transmission. The reason this is an issue is that if they came out with that statement, which in fact is not entirely true since there is some degree of modest but declining protection as you would expect, then this would conflict with the statement and effort of recommending that people get the updated bivalent BA.5 vaccine in September. In addition, it would undermine the DoJ’s efforts at mandates for vaccines under certain circumstances. In any event, the CDC agreed to pull back on the statement of absolute lack of efficacy of vaccines against infections and transmission and take a more measured approach of saying that the vaccines provides only modest and waning efficacy against infection and transmission and that is why we should heed the advice of getting the updated booster in Sept.

as well as this admission that numbers are not alarming and that the situation look like that of a "bad flu":

Tom Frieden called me this AM and we discussed various aspects of the outbreak. He and I are on the same page in thinking tht this is acting like a bad influenza in its transmissibility and that the denominator is much greater than 34,867 (above) making the case fatality rate (CFR) more like 0.2-0.3 % rather than 2.0%.

I didn't find much that is really damning. No conspiracy and no active, conscious evil-doing. More incompetence and irresponsbility. What is sure is that the content is embarrassing: no deep thoughts or reflection, no effort in the writing, no inspiration in the formulations, only his obsession for being famous, interviewed, admired... the crush with Joan Baez was cute, if a bit personal. But this does not atone for his irresponsible and criminal conduct of the whole affair.