Fauci: Covid 6ft rule ‘sort of just appeared’

THE six-feet social distancing guidance during the pandemic “sort of just appeared”, Anthony Fauci, the former White House medical adviser, has said.

It was “likely not based on data”, Dr Fauci conceded in a behind-closed-doors session of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

The social distancing requirement – six feet in the US and two metres in Britain – underpinned the sweeping lockdowns on both sides of the Atlantic.

It was a key reason for the mask mandates which, as the pandemic spread, became politicised. Dr Fauci also became a polarising figure, lionised by the Left and despised by conservatives.

In his evidence, Dr Fauci said the idea that the virus leaked from a lab in Wuhan was not a “conspiracy theory”.

Earlier this week, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and Republican presidential hopeful, promised to hold Dr Fauci accountable if he won the election. “I am the only candidate who will bring a reckoning for what tyrants like Fauci did to our country during Covid,” Mr DeSantis wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “

The Wall Street Journal said the sixfeet rule was questioned as early as August 2020 in the BMJ, the journal owned by the British Medical Association. “It’s nice of Dr Fauci to acknowledge now that the rule lacked a scientific basis,” it said.

Democrats accused Republicans of distorting Dr Fauci’s interview, which lasted seven hours and was spread over two days. Congressman Debbie Dingell said that Republican statements were “disinformation”.