With crazy moves like pausing Johnson & Johnson vaccine, this will be an endless pandemic

There are powerful, unelected people in high places who just don’t want the pandemic to end.

That’s the opinion I’ve formed after this week’s COVID-19 news, wherein federal health officials suspended use of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine, and Dr. Anthony Fauci continued his disastrous messaging crusade of telling people that your life won’t change once you get your shot.

Let’s start with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, which halted the J&J jab after six people out of 6.8 million reported blood clots. There’s less than a one-in-a-million chance something happens, but millions of people worldwide (the rollout was suspended in Europe, too) will be delayed in getting vaccinated over this drastic overreaction.

By comparison, about 50 people per year are killed by lightning out of 3.1 million total deaths in the U.S. You have a far better chance of being struck and killed by lightning than you do in suffering blood clots from the J&J vaccine.

This comes on the heels of the previous attempt to discredit the J&J vaccine, which was reported as being inferior to other vaccines when, in fact, it isn’t.

True, it was less effective in clinical trials than Pfizer and Moderna’s two-shot regimens of preventing COVID-19, which is often asymptomatic. But it was 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death. The J&J drug is literally foolproof and keeping you alive, requires a single dose, and it is much easier to store than its counterparts — and yet the perception was allowed to permeate that it was a second-class vaccine.

Now, communities of color are worried they are getting crappy drugs while white communities are getting the good stuff. What a complete and total messaging failure.

This crazy move by the CDC and FDA comes as COVID-19 cases have risen for four straight weeks, proving there’s no time to spare in ramping up vaccinations. A few hours after the FDA’s initial announcement, the agency’s head, Dr. Janet Woodcock, said she only expected the pause to last “for a few days.”

Exactly what will that solve? Nothing. But the ripple effects will live on forever, increasing vaccine hesitancy among already skeptical populations.

Appearing on CNBC on Tuesday morning, Dr. Kavita Patel, a primary care physician who worked on health-care initiatives in the Obama administration, called the FDA’s decision “a devastating blow to this J&J vaccine effort in the United States.

“To anybody who is hesitant, I would tell you: Think about the fact we are still dealing with deaths, hospitalizations and the effects of even mild cases of COVID,” Patel said. “Vaccines have been shown to be effective in all those situations. Preventing death is a much better option.”

How can we expect the pandemic to end if unelected bureaucrats can artificially prolong it with these disastrous decisions? Is no one at the FDA weighing the costs of an announcement like the J&J pause? More damage was done here than prevented. We are incessantly told to listen to the science, and yet the scientists themselves are often proving unworthy of our ears.

Millions of Americans who have dutifully worn their masks, shut down their businesses, cut their family visits, and home-schooled their kids are wondering what the hell is going on here.

This problem isn’t limited to the FDA. It reaches to Dr. Anthony Fauci who is on an inexplicable media crusade to tell people that, once you get your shot, nothing changes — stay inside, keep your mask on and live in fear.

“I don’t think I would — even if I’m vaccinated — go into an indoor, crowded place where people are not wearing masks,” Fauci said.

Why in the world would he say that? From a public relations perspective, this is sheer lunacy. The White House is already projecting that by May, there will be more vaccines available than demand, and Fauci is making it worse.

Here are the facts: The vaccines work. All of them. All messaging should revolve around getting as many shots in arms as possible. And that message is clear and easy: Get your shot, live your life.

But for the unelected portions of our government botching their vaccine message, there is no accountability. Those people know there is a day, if the pandemic is allowed to end, that their media appearances will dry up. Their power will abate. Their obscurity will return.

And I am starting to wonder if that reality is setting in. How else do you explain their actions? I began the pandemic as a Fauci cheerleader. I wanted to believe there was a doctor in Washington we could trust to see the nation through, even as Trump bumbled around and said — let’s face it — really stupid stuff.

But I’ve come to believe Fauci is in way over his head. He might be good at looking at infectious diseases under a microscope, but he stinks at talking to the American people. He has wasted his gravitas by arbitrarily moving the goal posts and sitting for photo shoots with fashion magazines.

Fauci and others are driving an unnecessary culture of fear that is manifesting itself in bizarre ways. A Washington Post poll taken in late March said only 69% of Americans would feel comfortable attending a sporting event if they knew everyone in the arena had been vaccinated.

At least a third of our country is cowering in fear, thanks to Fauci and the rest of the bureaucracy.

How long will we live with the wrongs of this pandemic? We are still giving ourselves tennis elbow from all the sanitized wiping despite clear data that shows that surface transmission of COVID-19 just isn’t a thing.

We are requiring people to wear masks at PGA golf tournaments and other outdoor events despite clear data showing outdoor transmission isn’t a thing.

We still have schools closed — particularly in blue states — despite clear data showing school transmission just isn’t a thing.

The people driving this culture of fear will never appear on a ballot, but the politicians they work for will. Voters should act accordingly and demand accountability from our leaders who should, at a minimum, extract some mea culpas and humility out of our embarrassing federal bureaucracy.