Serious Questions About The Way Covid Deaths Have Been Counted

[Stoic]

Fauci doesn't have any room to speak. He openly admitted about a year ago that he was going to nudge the percentage of people he said would need to be vaccinated once people might be able to see it as being in reach. The audacity of him admitting his dishonesty in plain sight was something.

Any estimates of what it will take to reach herd immunity are just that: estimates.

Fauci was picking a number out of a range of reasonable estimates. There is a lot of leeway allowed in giving an estimate before it becomes dishonest.

Or, as Fauci put it:

“We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

Of course, the "real number" changes over time. As the virus becomes more infectious, it goes up. As more people recover from infection (assuming the immunity lasts), the number goes down.

[KingsGambit]

Any estimates of what it will take to reach herd immunity are just that: estimates.

Fauci was picking a number out of a range of reasonable estimates. There is a lot of leeway allowed in giving an estimate before it becomes dishonest.

Or, as Fauci put it:

“We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.”

Of course, the "real number" changes over time. As the virus becomes more infectious, it goes up. As more people recover from infection (assuming the immunity lasts), the number goes down.

He openly admitted that the number he was giving was changing over time based on how palatable it would be to the public, which would mean it was not a true estimate, but rather a politically calculated statement. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/h...ronavirus.html

[Stoic]

He openly admitted that the number he was giving was changing over time based on how palatable it would be to the public, which would mean it was not a true estimate, but rather a politically calculated statement. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/h...ronavirus.html

He said the number he was giving was based partly on new science, and partly on partly on what he thought the public was ready to hear. Since there is no exact number based on science, and his estimates were in line with those given by many other scientists, I don't see any reason to fault him on this.