Fauci denies recommending 'locking anything down’

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci Monday raised eyebrows during an interview with Batya Ungar-Sargon and Robby Saove on Rising when he claimed he "didn’t recommend locking anything down.” 

Fauci’s remarks came in response to Ungar-Sargon's question about how children have suffered as a result of school closures during the pandemic. 

“At the same time, there were authorities that made different decisions than the CDC’s recommendations – for example, on school closures, and they did not see higher levels of mortality when it comes to COVID,” said the journalist. “And meanwhile, the schools that did close down, we’re now seeing just disastrous levels of learning loss among poor children, children of color, mental health crisis. I wonder if you would recommend locking down schools if you had to do it all over again.” 

“Well, you know, again – first of all, I didn’t recommend locking anything down,” answered Fauci. “Clearly, whenever you close schools, there are collateral effects that are negative. I have always been well aware of that, and I have always felt – and you can go back and look at my statements – that we need to do everything we can to keep the schools open and safe.” 

But a look at Fauci’s past statements directly contradicts his claim. 

In March 2020, VOA News reported that Fauci “would favor a national lockdown to stop further spread of the coronavirus -- the same kind of drastic step some hard-hit countries have taken.” 

In April 2020, Fauci told CNN that he supports all Americans being under a stay-at-home order. 

"If you look at what's going on in this country, I just don't understand why we're not doing that. We really should be,” he told Anderson Cooper. 

In August 2020, Reuters reported that according to Fauci, “states seeing surge in COVID-19 cases should reconsider some lockdown measures.” 

“The U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, on Monday said states with high coronavirus case counts should reconsider imposing lockdown restrictions, emphasizing the need to get cases to a low baseline before the fall flu season,” the report said.  

“Fauci also cautioned that although data suggests that young children do not get seriously ill from COVID-19, they are still capable of getting infected and spreading the virus,” added the article. 

“It was very clear when we had community spread, a few cases in the country of community spread...I recommended to the president that we shut the country down,” Fauci told alumni at the College of the Holy Cross in October 2020.

Fauci also praised China's lockdowns and said that had the U.S. locked down to that extent, the country would not have seen spread.

“And unfortunately, since we actually did not shut down completely, the way China did, the way Korea did, the way Taiwan did, um, we actually did see spread even though we shut down,” he added.

Fauci's remarks begin at the 21:06 mark.