Fauci’s Personal Diary Highlights Shocking Contradiction On COVID Fatality Rate

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical advisor to the president, appears to have misled Congress about the coronavirus fatality rate in the early days of the pandemic, making statements in private that contradicted his public testimony.

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-KY) released a trove of previously private Fauci diaries ahead of his expected testimony this Wednesday before a key oversight committee. 

A February 8, 2020, journal entry shows Fauci recounting a phone call with former CDC Director Tom Frieden in which he compared the novel coronavirus to a “bad influenza” and predicted a lower-than-expected fatality rate.

The Daily Wire is publishing excerpts from Fauci’s journal without any edits or spelling corrections.

“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%,” he wrote. 

At that moment, Fauci estimated more than 34,000 infections and 724 deaths.  

About a month later, however, the physician — who privately blushed about his rising public profile — presented Congress with a markedly different assessment of the disease. Testifying under oath at a March 11 hearing, Fauci responded to a question from Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) about the similarities between COVID-19 and influenza.

“The seasonal flu that we deal with every year has a mortality of 0.1 percent. The stated mortality overall of this when you look at all the data including China is about three percent. It first started off as two and now three,” Fauci told the panel. “I think if you count all the cases of minimally symptomatic or asymptomatic infection, that probably brings the mortality rate down to somewhere around one percent, which means it is 10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu. I think that is something that people can get their arms around and understand.”

During the hearing, Cloud questioned Fauci about whether COVID-19 was more lethal than previous diseases, including H1N1, commonly known as swine flu.

“No, absolutely not,” Fauci said. “The 2009 pandemic of H1N1 was even less lethal than the regular seasonal flu.” 

“I’m trying to help the American people know where to appropriately set their gauge,” Cloud fired back. 

Fauci doubled down on the alarm bells, despite privately downplaying the virus’s lethality.

“I think to set the gauge is that this is a really serious problem that we have to take seriously. I mean, people always say, ‘Well, the flu, you know, the flu does this, the flu does that.’ The flu has a mortality of 0.1 percent,” Fauci said. “This has a mortality of 10 times that, and that’s the reason why I want to emphasize we have to stay ahead of the game in preventing this.” 

The newly revealed contradictions come after The Daily Wire reported Fauci’s obsession with media attention as the coronavirus pandemic claimed lives and overwhelmed hospitals around the globe.

“Press still hot and heavy about me,” Fauci wrote on April 7, 2020. “Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me.”

Weeks later, hundreds of thousands of infections spread worldwide, and nearly 10,000 had died from the virus when Fauci penned the following journal entry on May 21, 2020. 

“Big front page article abut me appeared in the Washington Post. Very flattering. The situation with my national and international fame is explosive and really unimaginable. It is not hyoperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson in the world,” Fauci wrote.