Dr. Fauci offers grim prognosis

“I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. We’re just not.”

That clearly is not the view expressed repeatedly by Donald John “Prevaricator in Chief” Trump. It is instead an opinion offered by the nation’s — if not the world’s — leading infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Dr. Fauci is seriously concerned about the terrible spike in infection, hospitalization and death caused by the worldwide coronavirus pandemic.

The doc is contradicting directly the man for whom he works, the president of the United States. I am going to stand with the doctor’s view on where we stand in this fight against the pandemic.

Trump, meanwhile, is fighting for his political life and the pandemic — namely the federal response to it — isn’t providing Trump much ammo to use in his re-election campaign. Indeed, Donald Trump’s arsenal is spent; he is out of ammunition.

How in the world does the nation fight its way back from the medical brink? There is increasing talk about states returning to their shelter in place policies, shutting down businesses they had reopened, ordering Americans to do certain things to prevent the spread of the virus.

In Texas, where officials sought to restart the economy, GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has issued a mandatory mask-wearing order, told businesses to scale back their service to 50 percent of capacity. Yes, he has drawn fire for his order, namely from Republicans — if you can fathom that — who continue to insist that we reopen the business community despite the threat to people’s health and their very lives.

As for Dr. Fauci, he well might be writing his exit from the White House pandemic response team, where he has played a once-significant role that has been diminished of late because of Fauci’s disagreement with Donald Trump. Indeed, Trump has been critical openly of the good doctor, saying he has committed many “mistakes.” I haven’t heard a single example of what Trump considers to be a Fauci mistake.

Still, I am going to listen to the doctor. I am going to ignore the blathering of the politicians … especially the nation’s top pol, the guy who couldn’t tell us the unvarnished truth if his political career depended on it.

Oh, wait … !