Holman Jenkins:

More generally, he and other officials seemed eager to abet the censorious segment of the public to berate others about masks, vaccinations and lockdowns beyond their merits.

At times he also seemed to wave off responsibility for the downside of his advice aimed at reducing absolutely the number of cases, saying it was somebody else’s job to consider the trade-offs in lost employment, depression, missed schooling, suicide.

And not for Dr. Fauci or any other official was the advice advertised from day one on the CDC website (until it mysteriously disappeared): “In the coming months, most of the U.S. population will be exposed to this virus.” At worst, he and others thought it wouldn’t be good for their personal brands to be seen delivering this unwelcome but realistic news to the American people.

In Mr. Brennan’s suggestion Dr. Fauci did his best, a fair conclusion from a grown-up perspective if we understand doing his best to mean making judicious decisions about when to mislead.

Consistently misunderstood, especially by the relentless Trump critic Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, officials were under a de facto mandate to avoid panic.

The mayor of New York, the governor of California, Dr. Fauci and CDC’s Dr. Nancy Messonnier all declared that Covid was nothing to worry about, by which they really meant don’t worry yet. Their quotes now seem indefensibly glib. But under the textbook plan of “flatten the curve” the goal was to slow the spread only as needed to ease the burden on hospitals. Virtually any politician who paid attention to briefings understood job one to be playing down the new virus until it was time to institute specific measures.