During a press conference on Tuesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis slammed Dr. Anthony Fauci for recent comments Fauci made misquoting DeSantis.
A reporter said to DeSantis, “Governor, you recently said that unvaccinated individuals had no impact on numbers, and Dr. Fauci was quoted saying that —
“That’s not what I said. No, no, no, that’s not what I said,” DeSantis interjected. “Not that I ever expect to be quoted properly. What I said was, if you’re going to force vaccine mandates on people, just to understand that what the data is showing us about the vaccine, the data is showing us you’re much less likely to be hospitalized or die if you’re vaccinated. That is true. And I think you see it in the statistics.”
“However, the vaccinations have not created herd immunity,” DeSantis continued. “So if the idea is that having herd immunity, you force everyone to do this, and that will create a herd immunity, that has not happened. It’s still spreading. People who, I mean, obviously in Florida, we’re going down now which is great, but that’s not what the issue is, is it creating a herd immunity? Fauci also said if 50% were vaccinated, you would not see any surges anymore. Well, that isn’t true. Look at obviously the Sunbelt, look in the Pacific Northwest, look at Hawaii, huge surges that you’ve seen.”
.@GovRonDeSantis hits back at Dr. Fauci, who criticized him this AM on CNN: “Fauci said if 50 percent were vaccinated you wouldn’t see any surges anymore — well, that isn’t true" pic.twitter.com/8f0kPDkAGs
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) September 7, 2021
The exchange comes days after newly released documents detail how the U.S. government allegedly funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the city where the COVID-19 outbreak began. The documents suggest that Fauci lied repeatedly about gain-of-function research at the lab.
“The bat coronavirus grant provided EcoHealth Alliance with a total of $3.1 million, including $599,000 that the Wuhan Institute of Virology used in part to identify and alter bat coronaviruses likely to infect humans,” The Intercept reported.
