Republicans Blame Fauci for 43 State Covid Orders as Experts Dispute US 'Lockdown' Narrative
Updated
Updated · CNN · Aug 6
Republicans Blame Fauci for 43 State Covid Orders as Experts Dispute US 'Lockdown' Narrative
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Aug 6
Summary
Rand Paul and other Republicans intensified attacks on Anthony Fauci after a July 29 hearing, accusing him of causing needless suffering through Covid “lockdowns” and mishandling the pandemic response.
The report argues the charge rests on a slippery term: the US never imposed a single national lockdown, instead relying on a patchwork in which 43 states issued stay-at-home orders in March and April 2020.
Researchers said “lockdown” was rarely an official public-health term and came to mean everything from strict movement bans to masking and contact tracing, obscuring major differences among policies and states.
Oxford researchers rated the US roughly mid-pack on Covid policy stringency in 2020-21 and among the least restrictive by 2022, undercutting comparisons with far harsher measures in places like Wuhan or Italy.
Public-health experts said broad denunciations of “lockdowns” flatten harder questions—such as school closures, trade-offs and communication failures—and risk misreading the pandemic’s main source of harm: the virus itself.