Drew Holden Profile picture
Jul 28, 2021 18 tweets 10 min read Read on X
🧵THREAD🧵

We’ve all seen the various flip-flops of the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci over the last 18 months.

To help keep track, I present “Fauci vs. Fauci,” chronicling the twists, turns, contradictions and backtracks from the man and his agency.⤵️
To start, we need to focus on Dr. Fauci’s perspective on the virus itself and it’s risk to the United States.

In late January 2020, Fauci said that COVID was a “very, very low risk to the United States.”

I think it goes without saying that his perspective has evolved since. ImageImage
One big, obvious area of flipping is around the benefits of wearing a mask. Dr. Fauci originally said that masks weren’t effective & publicly encouraged Americans not to buy them (guidance he doesn’t regret).

Now even vaccinated people need to wear masks. ImageImageImage
And it wasn’t just the efficacy of masks in general. Less than a month ago , Dr. Fauci declared confidently that the CDC wasn’t going to change its recommendation about masking given the Delta variant.

We’ve already seen changes, and more are under consideration. ImageImageImage
And how many masks were we all supposed to wear, anyway?

Was it one mask? Two masks? No mask? A face shield? Goggles? Depending on when you asked Dr. Fauci, it could’ve been anything. ImageImageImageImage
Dr. Fauci was a leading voice suggesting for months that the pandemic couldn’t possibly have leaked from a lab in Wuhan (one that received US tax dollars, by the way).

That was until the consensus changed. And then, suddenly, the theory couldn’t be dismissed.

Complete 180 ImageImage
These reversals cut in both directions. Back in September, the CDC changed its rules - reportedly under political pressure - to reduce the people it advised getting tested, before quickly reversing course after pressure. ImageImage
And you may have forgotten, but the CDC had a brouhaha also in September when new guidance about airborne transmission - including beyond 6 feet - went live on the agency’s website.

It was quickly scrubbed after a brief medical & news firestorm.

Not exactly confidence-inspiring ImageImage
Schools have seen lots of reversals. In February, the CDC Director said schools could reopen safely w/o teachers vaccinated.

Well, a few calls from the teachers union later, the CDC reversed course. Weeks later, new guidance (sensing a theme?) was released focusing on teachers. ImageImageImage
And we had plenty of flips when it came to teachers wearing masks.

First, the CDC said that they had to, back in May 2020.

Then earlier this month, the CDC said vaccinated teachers and students don’t need one.

But now? Back to where we started - masks for the vaccinated. ImageImage
And who could forget the approval, then pause, then unpause of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, a move that diminished American confidence in vaccines in the midst of a vaccine rollout during a global pandemic? ImageImageImage
The coronavirus pandemic is unlike anything any of us have seen before. There should be some charity and humility about bad predictions.

But the idea that Dr. Fauci and the CDC haven’t flip-flopped? That’s just preposterous. Image
Is it any wonder Americans don’t trust public health experts after this? Does it surprise anyone that Dr. Fauci and the CDC aren’t seen as reputable now?

These failures have consequences, and you can measure them in lives.
I don’t have anything to sell or subscribe to, but if you’re able, this is still an incredibly difficult time for local food banks. Here in DC, Capital Area Food Bank is well worth your charity. capitalareafoodbank.org
Important 🧵 addition. You may remember that, back in April, Dr. Fauci said new case levels meant we were primed for a surge.

As you can see by the case count, that didn’t happen (1/2) ImageImage
But now, as blue states who have supposedly done everything right see their counts increase, Dr. Fauci has realized (too late, IMO) that case counts actually aren’t worth worrying about.

Interesting how that happens. (2/2) ImageImage
This news comes on the heels of CDC Director Walensky giving the game away on isolation periods, admitting that their guidance changed not with any science but because they didn’t think folks could “tolerate” longer periods (again, now that it’s the Good Guys getting sick) Image
That led to a backlash from the media and powerful unions which - somehow - has caused “the science” to quickly shift once again, requiring “further clarification” imminently ImageImageImage

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More from @DrewHolden360

May 16
🧵Thread🧵

The day after my 30th birthday I was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Two years later, I’m in remission. I don’t talk much about what happened, but I wanted to write it down, both for myself, and in case it could help others.

If interested, follow along. ⤵️
This is admittedly uncomfortable for me. I’m trying to learn how to talk about the experience, because it’s obviously become a big part of my life.

If you aren’t interested in the details, I totally understand. But I want to get this story in one place.
In early 2022, I started getting headaches and dizzy spells. I thought they were just part of getting older.

But one morning I woke up and couldn’t get out of bed. My head was splitting. I started to get dizzy pretty often.
Read 22 tweets
May 8
🧵Thread🧵

I’m sure you’ve all seen the protests and attendant anti-Semitism at many elite American universities. What you may not be aware of is the hypocrisy in how schools have handled them.

Do you remember what these places said about protests in 2020? I’ve got receipts. ⤵️
We’ve gotta start with @Columbia, given their central role in this drama.

In 2020, the university pledged to change how campus police operated, and said protests were part of a “heightened state of consciousness” on race & were driving the “revitalization of American democracy.”


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That, unsurprisingly, led @Columbia to embrace defunding the police on their website, citing a professor.

It’s hard to square that sentiment with calling in police in riot gear to rough up students on campus, @Columbia.
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Read 19 tweets
May 2
🧵Thread🧵

Want to see a media conspiracy, based on Biden admin propaganda to smear a GOP governor, come into existence?

If so, follow along. Let’s revisit the media claim that Texas “physically barred” drowning migrants from entering the country.

Another long one ⤵️
Back in mid-January, three people trying to enter the country illegally drowned in the Rio Grande. It happened while Texas & the Biden admin were fighting about security measures.

The Biden admin told the press a lie. The media ran with it, and most never corrected the stories.
The fraudulent story was advanced first by @CBSNews. On January 14, they claimed that the crossers had drowned b/c Texas “physically barred” rescuers trying to help.

The takeaway from CBS was clear: Texas had deliberately killed people, rather than allowing them to be rescued.
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Read 28 tweets
Apr 24
🧵THREAD🧵

Do you remember how bad the media’s “Covid lab leak” - the hypothesis that the virus came from a lab - coverage was?

I thought I did. But it was a more dramatic example of uniform media malpractice than even I remembered.

So I revisited it. Buckle in, it’s long. ⤵️
It started in Feb 2020 when @SenTomCotton suggested looking into the CCP lab studying bats near the initial cases in Wuhan.

The media were outraged. In a since-updated piece, @washingtonpost said the idea was a “conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts.”
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It wasn’t just WaPo. Shortly thereafter, @nytimes trotted out a similar allegation, calling the lab leak hypothesis a “fringe theory” and a “tale” designed to inflame social media.

@CNN’s @ChrisCillizza said Cotton was “playing a dangerous game” with his suggestions.

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Read 28 tweets
Apr 22
It's always interesting to me, the tweets outlets never bother to delete.
The reason I take screenshots is that I'm always paranoid that an outlet or journalist will scrap the evidence of a bad take. Maybe I should be giving folks more credit for standing by their inaccuracies.
Every so often I check back in on this, perhaps my all-time favorite headline from @NPR, only to see that it still exists in its original form, from April 2020. Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 17
🧵Thread🧵

I launched a newsletter, called Holden Court, about the media, what they get wrong & why it matters. The goal is to reach beyond what my 🧵s have on Twitter & to build a better recent history of media & media criticism.

You can sign up at the link in my bio. More ⤵️
At that link you can read my launch piece and get a better idea of what it is that I’m trying to do.

The piece also walks through a recent example of bad media coverage that I worry we’re already forgetting about: the start of Covid. Image
My general premise for the newsletter is that media criticism could be a lot better; more driven by what the media actually does and says and more set in recent context, rather than an impressionistic sense that the media is hopelessly off-track.
Read 8 tweets

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