Dr. Anthony Fauci is an expert. I’m assured of it on a near-daily basis by the media, who host the exalted doctor on their networks, hanging on his every word. Of course, it wasn’t always like that. In the early stages of the pandemic, Fauci got the cold shoulder because he was part of the Trump administration. It didn’t take long for him to shift his persona and rhetorical style so that he could start basking in the glow of the left’s plaudits.

Of course, Fauci’s expertise is highly debatable. Yes, he has the credentials, but credentials hardly make someone right when they start opining on things that may lack good answers. That’s never been more true than the coronavirus, where Fauci has flipped and flopped on numerous issues while being shown to be outright wrong on others. Despite his checkered record, he still chooses to target red states like Florida while celebrating dumpster fires like New York.

This morning, I stumbled across a chart that shows how truly useless Fauci’s “advice” is. Take a look.

It’s been a while since I updated the chart of Florida, Fauci’s favorite target for criticism, vs. all the states that blindly follow his advice

Shockingly, nearly 3 months after he said Florida was “asking for trouble”, they’re still having the best results pic.twitter.com/f8yHPgRz1Z

— IM (@ianmSC) December 22, 2020

Why, it’s almost as if Fauci’s chosen prescriptions of lockdowns and mask-wearing (and until recently, closing schools) aren’t having the effect he said they’d have. If restrictions lead to lower infection totals and hospitalizations, you should see Florida at the top of that chart, not places like California and New York, that latter of which Fauci previously proclaimed had “done it right.” In reality, Florida, which has been mostly restriction-free since way back in September, is still doing better than all the more lauded blue states. You’d think an expert of Fauci’s class could recognize the lack of correlation between hospitalizations and his assertions, leading to him evolving his thoughts on the matter. But all he does is double down because that’s all government bureaucrats ever do.

The truth is, like many things in life, the government simply can’t fix this situation. They can help with the distribution of a vaccine. They can encourage the most vulnerable to not take unnecessary risks. But crushing restrictions have been thoroughly shown to not work. Politicians and bureaucrats hate that, though, because they want to be able to claim there is some silver bullet that can make everything better. Masks certainly aren’t one. Lockdowns, to the extent that do anything (they promote household spread), only delay the inevitable. If following the science mattered, those things would no longer be such a focus of our government class.

But Fauci doesn’t care. He’s got his new job in the Biden administration and he has the admiration of the media. That’s all he really wanted.

(Please follow me on Twitter! @bonchieredstate)