Even After Fauci, Government COVID Misinformation Won’t Stop

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed many troubling aspects of the functioning of government and the commitment of individuals and institutions to maintaining their preferred narratives.

Truth, data, science, evidence… none of these things matter compared to the importance of ensuring that the public complies with what is expected of them. Perhaps no individual has better represented the symbiotic relationship between government officials and members of the media, and their commitment to ideological priorities, than Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci’s NIAID and its parent organization, the National Institutes of Health, have been among the most prolific spreaders of ideologically motivated misinformation during the pandemic. But Fauci is no longer with the NIH, having left the private sector to enjoy its financial perks.

So things have finally gotten better in terms of government studies and communication, right? Right?

Not exactly.

Government misinformation about COVID-19 continues unabated

A triumphant and breathless press release from the National Institutes of Health was just issued last week, reporting a new study that reached a terrifying new conclusion. Getting COVID-19 once is bad, but getting it twice? That’s terrifying.

At least that’s what they claim, based on a massive amount of “health data” on more than 200,000 Americans who they say had COVID at least once over a two-and-a-half-year period, from 2020 to 2022.

“These individuals were initially infected between March 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022, and had a second infection in March 2023. Most participants (203,735) had COVID-19 twice, but a small number (478) had it three or more times,” the study said.

The conclusion is, at first glance, extremely worrying.

“Using health data from nearly 213,000 Americans who experienced reinfections, researchers found that severe infections with the virus that causes COVID-19 tend to predict similar severity of infection the next time a person gets the disease. Additionally, scientists found that long COVID was more likely to occur after a first infection than after reinfection,” the NIH summary states.

Sounds bad, right? If you get infected a second time, you’re likely to get a severe case of COVID, right?

But this is not at all an accurate conclusion from the limited data presented.

“About 27% of people with severe cases, defined as receiving hospital care for coronavirus infection, also received hospital care for reinfection. Adults with severe cases were more likely to have underlying health conditions and to be aged 60 or older. In contrast, about 87% of people who had mild cases of COVID who did not require hospital care the first time also had mild cases of reinfection,” the researchers write.

And here is the real story, hidden in plain sight.

We know from our experience that COVID-19 particularly affects people who are unhealthy, those with underlying conditions, or those who are elderly AND unhealthy. We also know that a very small percentage of COVID-19 cases require hospital treatment.

This study simply shows that people who are in poor health, have underlying conditions, or are older are more likely to need additional care if they get COVID-19 a second time. Even so, 73% of people who were infected a second time and hospitalized the first time did not need to be hospitalized for the second infection. Indeed, the vast majority of people who had mild cases of COVID-19 the first time had mild cases of COVID-19 the second time.

The protection afforded by natural immunity is very important and usually long-lasting, although it is less so in an individual with underlying poor health. This is not new. But it has not stopped the new NIH director from fearmongering and bad science.

READ: Natural immunity to COVID-19 is more protective than vaccination, new study finds

NIH Can’t Help But Get It Wrong

Dr. Monica Bertagnolli posted a link to the study on X, along with a brief summary. She repeated the same line about the severity of COVID reinfections, which was intended to undermine the importance of natural immunity.

And more importantly, she said the findings underscore “the importance of preventing infection.”

But that’s impossible. SARS-CoV-2 is an endemic virus. It will never be eliminated. It will never be stopped. Infection cannot be prevented. Vaccines don’t stop it, masks certainly don’t stop it, and any public interaction could lead to infection.

There is no way to prevent infection, which is why some countries have now reported that about 70% of their population, even with mask wearing and vaccination, have tested positive. Telling those at risk to avoid infection is an irresponsible mistake. So why is this information coming from the NIH?

Indeed, these researchers also accidentally advanced the hypothesis of natural immunity. By studying the non-existent phenomenon of “long COVID,” they discovered that people who suffered the typical, longer-lasting effects of viral infections had stronger reactions after their first infection.

“Scientists also found that regardless of the variant, cases of long COVID were more likely to occur after a first infection compared to reinfection,” the study said.

Due to natural immunity.

They spent years downplaying this disease with Anthony Fauci. They continue to downplay it in 2024. But reality and science continue to show that natural immunity is protective and long lasting. Especially for healthy people and younger age groups. Imagine if government agencies had been willing to admit that in 2020 instead of needlessly locking down all of society to prevent a virus that cannot be prevented.

This would have been a correct assessment and communication. But since when do government agencies do anything correct in the face of COVID?