Fauci Dodges Question on Mounting Breakthrough Cases

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BUCK: What about the situation here of breakthrough cases? I mentioned yesterday — Clay and I were talking about this — you have, according to the state health department of Massachusetts’ own numbers, a little less than a third of people in the hospital right now with covid — maybe let’s call it 20, 25% — are fully vaccinated.

That’s not 1%. That’s not 0.1%. That’s a pretty sizable chunk, and that’s not including all breakthrough cases. So that’s starting to feel like we’re not getting told everything. Maybe the numbers haven’t been compiled properly. I’m not the only one who’s wondering. Here is a CNBC anchor asking Fauci, “Are these breakthrough cases really rare?”

SARA EISEN: Are you casual about limitations of the vaccines?

FAUCI: (sputtering)

SARA EISEN: Because it does feel to me that these breakthroughs are happening, they’re happening regularly, and we haven’t really seen the government pay that much attention to them or warn about them very much.

FAUCI: (sputtering)

SARA EISEN: It says on the CDC website, Dr. Fauci, that infections happen in only a small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated and when these infections occur among the vaccinated they tend to be mild. But the CDC doesn’t even track the breakthrough infections. So how do we know that they’re happening tow a small proportion, and how do we know that they are tending to be mild?

BUCK: Clay, that seems like a pretty big deal that the CDC is not tracking — every single day — breakthrough infections. It’s not one in 5,000 per day as Biden said in a speech a couple weeks ago. Bull crap.

CLAY: Wheat I will say I’m encouraged by here is Fauci is not getting the holier-than-thou treatment from all media members. That is a really good question, laying out all of the details and all of the analysis there. And I think it’s emblematic of what we saw in the wake of Fauci on Sunday saying we might have to cancel Christmas. A lot of people are finally stepping up and pointing to Fauci and saying, “You are effectively the emperor wearing no clothes,” and he’s getting called on it.

BUCK: I think so. And we should come back in a moment, Clay, to his answer ’cause you know why they’re asking real questions? ‘Cause all vaccinated journos are like, “W-w-w-hat do you mean, ‘breakthrough infections’?” They’re worried, which is —

CLAY: They haven’t looked at the data.

BUCK: — why they’re willing to ask the real questions. That’s the difference here. But just to give you some numbers, folks. “It’s super, super rare”? What it does mean? Well, the latest in Massachusetts which is going through a huge surge — even though it is a very heavily vaccinated state — their total caseload for breakthrough cases? In the last week alone, they had 4,378 breakthrough cases, Clay. That was last week.

CLAY: Doesn’t seem like a small number.

BUCK: That do not seem “super rare” to me. Why don’t we come back to this with Dr. Fauci in a moment.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: We want to play for you as we were just talking in the last segment you heard a CNBC point that I think is pretty significant about breakthrough infections and how common they are even for people who are vaccinated. And Dr. Fauci was asked why it’s not being tracked and how common they are, and here was his response.

FAUCI: The CDC has not — you’re quite correct — tracked all real and potential asymptomatic infections. They are modifying that right now, and the studies that are being done that would give the kind of information that you’re talking about. Also, it’s very important to know that with the booster rollout that we’ve been talking about, we are anticipating that we will the get an extra added boost in the sense of clinical effect. It looks like that extra added of protection (sic) from a boost will be very valuable.

BUCK: Can I say, he wasn’t asked about asymptomatic cases. He was asked by the journalist — which we played before and maybe we should go back to — about breakthrough cases.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: And he dodged.

CLAY: And not only did he dodge, this is a big question that is really interesting to think about, because the way he dodged made me raise another question, Buck, and I’m curious if you’ve thought a lot about this. I know we kind of hinted at the hypothesis that’s out there, that many of these people that are getting vaccinated may well…

If you look, one hypothesis is that one reason we have seen an increase overall in the number of covid cases even as many people are being vaccinated is that a lot of these people who are getting vaccinated have a high level of covid still — potential high enough to test, even though they’re not getting ill themselves as much — and they could be spreading it to the unvaccinated.

In other words, there is a hypothesis out there that one reason why covid cases have continued to go up is not because the unvaccinated are a threat to the vaccinated, but because the people who are vaccinated are basically becoming the vectors of transmission to the unvaccinated as a result of their covid vaccines.

Which would flip everything on its head in terms of the way that people are lecturing the unvaccinated as if they are the danger. That’s a hypothesis that seeks to explain — as you and I both know, Buck — why the numbers of covid cases would have gone up as we rose to, I think right now, 77% of adults 18 and up have had at least one covid vaccine shot.

BUCK: This is a situation where you could also look at whether we’re dealing with what would be called “leaky vaccines.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That seems to be at least at some level of the cases. Leaky vaccines where someone can get infected and spread the virus, and in some cases it can actually result — and this is where we talked about a decedents of chickens, not of humans, Marek’s disease. But it’s where you can actually create faster, more adaptive variant through mass vaccination campaigns —

CLAY: Which is a worst-case scenario.

BUCK: — with leaky vaccines, right? Because if you vaccinate… Like polio, if you’re vaccinated, you don’t get it; you don’t give it.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: With this disease, with covid-19, you clearly can get and give.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: You may be doing it at lower levels, but you clearly can get and give. And we’ve had a vaccination campaign with over 200 million Americans have been vaccinated. So there’s a lot of exposure of the virus to imperfect vaccination efforts. And by doing that, you’re giving the virus an opportunity to see…

It’s kind of like giving the enemy a look at your defenses before the big assault, right? Now, maybe you do it a million times, no big deal. Do it 10 million, a hundred million times? You only need one time where the virus actually mutates in a way that you get a variant that’s either much more transmissible — or, God forbid, much more lethal — and you’ve got a very big problem on your hands.

CLAY: And one reason, Buck, we could be dealing with now cases declining is I think it’s Delta variant, but also the mass rush to get vaccinated, there could be just less… We know the waning efficacy of the vaccines might be actually making there be fewer cases because it’s not many people walking around with covid ought to be able to pass.

Now, this also ties in. People say, “Okay, what’s the significance here?” Well, in your life, what rules are being applied? Buck, you know in New York City, to go to a restaurant, to go to a sporting event, you have to have the covid vaccine negative test, all these different covid vaccine passports, same thing now in much of California.

But red states have typically not required those same protections or those same passports, covid vaccine passports. Mark Cuban down in Dallas — where you got Jerry Jones’ 100,000 people or whatever it is showing up for Cowboys games. Mark Cuban is now requiring, in order to go to a Dallas Mavericks game in deep red state Texas either a covid vaccine or a negative test. I believe we have a cut of Cuban, and I’ve been arguing with him publicly. Some of you may have seen this. Here’s Cuban talking about his new policy. Cut 6.

CUBAN: No. So two things. One, you know, if you have a proof of vaccination, that’s good enough; you upload it to our app and that’s all you need to do for one time a year. If not let’s say you have covid we still want to have prior to of that that natural immunity is working and you don’t have covid, you just have to show, um, uh, uh, a negative test within the previous three days. So if you’re vaccinated, it’s easy.

BUCK: So he’s almost there. He knows there’s a thing of natural immunity. He knows you’re actually safer as someone with natural immunity as someone who’s only gotten the vaccine and not had the virus. But he insists on it being a test-only system every time instead. By that logic, why not have a vaccinated person test every time?

CLAY: That’s right. That’s what I asked him. Brett Kavanaugh, for instance, for people out there, found out after double vaccination. There are lots of people out there who have been double vaccinated and tested positive so what Cuban is trying to sell to his fan base is, “You’re safe and also you’re virtuous.” But the reality is, Buck, this is a broken system.

So what I’ve been arguing with him about — and I do think this would be an improvement. First of all, we are clear: We don’t believe in covid vaccine mandates. I certainly don’t think you should have to show a passport to go to a restaurant or a bar or a sporting event. I’m not in favor of this.

But if you are going to put that policy in place, I think you should be logically consistent, and that policy should include if you can prove that you have covid antibodies. That should count just as much as a vaccine, and you shouldn’t have to get a negative test after you’ve already are covid in order to get in, if you’re not having to get one for the vaccine, too.

BUCK: Natural immunity has been a casualty of the noble lie that the only responsible way forward is for everyone to get the vaccine. I say noble lie insofar as that’s what the left thinks it is.

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: We just view it as not actually rooted in the science. They’re just lying. But it’s very clear that the health authorities, the Fauciites made a decision that they’re going to ignore this enormously important part of the entire equation here, and make everybody get a shot because the one-size-fits-all of “get the shot or else” was a thing they were most comfortable with.

Both from a dealing with their unreasonable covid anxiety perspective but also their desire to set, I think, a precedent and a standard where the government now, under health authority, has more control than it ever has before over people’s day-to-day lives, which we’ve seen. And I think that that’s why you’re starting to see some folks come around to say:

“Well, hold on a second. Why is it that now we are just beginning to hear about natural immunity? We’re just beginning to hear from Fauci that they’re counting breakthrough infection?” Isn’t that absolutely essentially data? How can you be pushing a vaccine on everybody saying you must get this, it’s irresponsible not to, and not know how many people who get the vaccine, Clay, still get sick — and in some cases still go to the hospital and even in some cases die?

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: That is the reality of this, but they don’t have those numbers. Kind of like how though never really wanted to know how much natural immunity was out there through serology testing, through the blood tests. They could have been tracking it every single month. Clay, they track the numbers they want to use for the policies they insist on, and they ignore the ones that they don’t like.

CLAY: And here’s what I would say. We have a ton of people in media who listen to this show. As Rush used to say, a lot of people listen to this show as prep for their jobs.

BUCK: We’re happy to help. We’re happy to help. We’re helpful guys.

CLAY: Happy to help. What I would say is we need Fauci — ’cause he won’t come on our show. We need Fauci pressed on these questions. These are significant and important questions.

BUCK: Yeah. Can some other journos plagiarize some of our questions. Take our quesitos.

CLAY: We’re giving you great questions.

BUCK: Someone ask Fauci how we can take him seriously when he says things like, “We haven’t really looked at breakthrough infections as a number.” What more important number is there? You’re counting every vaccine, you’re counting every second vaccination, you’re telling us to get boosters, you’re counting every case, including people who are fine!

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: But you’re not gonna know how many times the vaccine is failing to prevent infection? Gee.

CLAY: Seems like a big deal.

BUCK: I think that’s a pretty big deal, Clay. I do. I think there’s something funky going on here.

CLAY: You know what? And again, we encourage everybody: Just ask those questions. We’ll play your questions on our show for our audience as a thank you as he we just did for that CNBC question.