Editors at Issues and Insights explain why a primary public face of the federal government’s coronavirus pandemic response ought to be fired.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has impressive credentials and a lengthy tenure as a top-level government health official dating back to 1984. But his performance during the COVID-19 pandemic has been abysmal, with politicized non-science-based edicts and frequently reversed “medical advice” that have confused and frightened Americans.

Just a week ago, Fauci made what to some was a stunning admission: “We’ve done worse than most any country” in managing the outbreak, he said. We say “stunning” because Fauci, as head of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is the official most responsible for the U.S. response.

His 2019 pay of $417,608 makes him the nation’s highest paid federal official. As a scientist, he’s held in very high esteem by many, particularly those on the left, who see his sweeping powers – lockdowns, masking, social distancing – as a nifty means of social control. It’s control of 330 million people via social isolation and nonstop browbeating of those who dare to diverge from the oppressive “new normal” we all now experience on a daily basis.

The big problem has been Fauci’s pronunciamentos are often nonsensical, not supported by science or contradictory. “These are my principles,” Groucho Marx once said. “If you don’t like these, I have others.” That’s Fauci.

Take masking, for instance. The Daily Wire counted five different mask policies by Fauci as of Feb. 11. Oops! Make that six. After calling masking “largely symbolic” last spring and telling Americans “don’t wear masks,” he now suggests we need to “double mask” and that it might last into 2022.

This, despite some doctors and researchers claims that masking doesn’t do much. After reviewing multiple studies, the group Science-Based Medicine concluded that “the benefit (of masking) is likely to be modest.”