When Sen. Rand Paul released private texts and messages from Anthony Fauci to the public several weeks ago, it brought the now-former head of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases back into the national conversation.
Many involved in that national conversation have been critical of what the “Fauci diaries” revealed. That the supposedly unbiased “expert” was, in fact, anything but. Instead, he was an arrogant, self-obsessed, fame-hungry, frequently dishonest narcissist.
Other “news” outlets like CNN or MSNBC either ignored the controversy over his diary, and the many inconsistencies in it, preferring to avoid humiliating themselves for their past hero worship.
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It wasn’t just the emails that caused embarrassment for Fauci and his media partners, however. Text messages released by Sen. Ron Johnson showed that he had legitimate concerns over the possibility that COVID vaccines were causing side effects in pregnant mothers. Concerns that warranted further investigation, regardless of the outcome.
Former NIH Director Anthony Fauci is sworn in before testifying to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Well, there are some more new text messages that should cast doubt on both Fauci’s public statements and the media’s all-too-willing promotion of them.
One such message came from Michael Osterholm. Osterholm is an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota, as well as a professor in the school’s public health department. Importantly, he’s also the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP). CIDRAP became famous during COVID when one of their articles, published in April 2020, acknowledged the truth, that there was no evidence to support cloth masking to stop the spread of the virus. They then were forced to issue “clarifications” when pressure became overwhelming to support masks, regardless of the data and evidence.
Osterholm sent this text message in August 2021 to several people, with just their first names included. One was “Jeff,” likely Jeff Zients, the COVID response coordinator at the start of the Biden administration. Another was “Vivek,” again likely Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General under Biden. Then there was “Tony,” the popular nickname for Fauci among those who knew him personally. And finally “Rochelle,” which was almost certainly a reference to then-CDC director Rochelle Walensky.
The contents of the text were enormously revealing, as it confirmed what most Fauci-critics long suspected: they all knew the masks they’d been recommending didn’t work.
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Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 11, 2022. (Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images)
“Dear Jeff, Vivek, Tony and Rochelle, I’m sending this via text messaging to avoid any FOIA issues,” Osterholm started, in a clear admission that these “experts” frequently worked to hide information from the public.
“On Friday a Newsmax reporter asked Jen Psaki about my comments on face cloth coverings and protection against SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The reporter completely mischaracterized my comments made on numerous occasions over the past 16 months about ‘masks’ and the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. She was taking the Florida governor’s approach. Since April, 2020, I have been consistent in my messaging about the roles that aerosols play in transmission, and the limited benefit that cloth face coverings play in reducing risk.”
Ah, yes. The very cloth masks that Fauci, Walensky, Murthy and Zients had worked tirelessly to promote to the American people. The cloth masks that were mandated by politicians across the country, forced onto toddlers, those with learning disabilities, or with compliance requirements that resulted in disagreements, fights, or being removed from businesses or other public places. They didn’t work, because the virus was transmitted via aerosols and not droplets. And the science on this was clear, and had not changed since April 2020.
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Osterholm knew this, had clearly told the other “experts” the same, and they ignored the science and pushed masks anyway.
The text continues by acknowledging that the “national industrial hygienists expert group on respiratory protection” had found that cloth face coverings had virtually no protective benefit as opposed to wearing nothing.
“N-95s are necessary to be effective reducing risk with aerosol transmission. Here is a link to the ACGIH website (the national industrial hygienists expert group on respiratory protection.) (https://1lnfej4c7wie44voctzq1r57-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Fact_Sheet_Face-Mask.pdf) Note the very limited protection from face cloth coverings versus no respiratory protection at all.”
In order to save face with Fauci, Walensky and Murthy, Osterholm then adds that he supports “masking,” but that it should be with N95 masks. That’s also wrong, as we’ll see shortly, but at the very least there’s more rational basis for it than the masks Fauci and Walensky demanded people wear. More importantly though, Osterholm once again reveals the uncomfortable truth: all of the CDC’s supporting “evidence” was essentially fake.
“CMS has supported an expert review group process for evaluating respiratory protection studies since the early days of the pandemic and have found none of the studies that CDC uses to support its statement as to the significant protection of face cloth coverings stand up to scientific scrutiny,” he wrote.
Imagine if this had been widely reported and acknowledged in 2020 and 2021. The CDC’s research on masks was virtually useless. Some, who, ahem, wrote books about this, had pointed that out at the time. But to see Osterholm tell Fauci and Walensky that the “studies” they used and referred to were garbage is both refreshing and infuriating.
Former NIH Director Anthony Fauci listens during a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on July 29, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Fauci declined to answer questions, asserting his Fifth Amendment right. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
These are highly credentialed “experts” who know what high-quality research looks like. For all their flaws, they weren’t and aren’t unintelligent or uneducated. They knew that the CDC had put out junk science to justify their position on masks, then promoted and defended it anyway because they wanted mask mandates, even though those mandates were obviously failing.
Osterholm wasn’t done there, saying that the CDC’s mistakes didn’t end there.
“As we all know, CDC was very late to the game recognizing that aerosols play a significant role in the transmission picture. Just look at the current US map of Delta activity and see how fast and far it has spread throughout the US. This is largely aerosol transmission driven, not respiratory droplets,” Osterholm said.
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Aerosols were the driving force of COVID transmission. Which meant that masks were always going to be useless, as pre-pandemic planning research had already confirmed. The CDC took an extraordinarily long time to admit that, likely because they knew what it meant about masking.
Osterholm goes on to urge more N95 masks, but closes with this important takeaway: “I am certain one day that one of the take-away findings of this pandemic was the constant USG emphasis on masking while at the same time providing minimal guidance to the public what effective masking means.”
He was right, to an extent. There is no such thing as “effective masking.” But the obsessive government emphasis on it was and is a constant, permanent source of embarrassment and failure. Masks didn’t work, and public health officials torched their credibility to pretend they did.
Oh, and those N95 masks? Yeah they didn’t work either. Several German states followed Osterholm’s advice and mandated N95-grade masks in public. They then reported higher case rates than the states that had “lower quality” mandates.
Comparison of COVID case rates in German states with N95 mask mandates and those with surgical mask mandates (Ian Miller)
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None of it worked. And they all knew it and pretended otherwise anyway.
