COLUMBUS, Ohio – Over 3,200 pages of Dr. Anthony Fauci emails contain at least one reference to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. A National Institutes of Health (NIH) doctor – Peter Kilmarx – sent an email in April 2020 stating that DeWine would be part of a group of Republican governors who would be “most interested and helpful” to “encourage implementation and create demand” for a COVID-19 Response Corps.
Images of emails obtained by BuzzFeed News via FOIA request. See more at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20793561-leopold-nih-foia-anthony-fauci-emails
The email was sent after an Op-Ed written by Congresswoman Susan Brooks (R-IN) and Congressman Ami Bera (D-CA) was published on the Centers for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) website. The email reads like a tactical command to tap U.S. governors, among others, to drum up demand for a global COVID response force.
The Op-Ed is here.
In the email, DeWine is listed along with Republican governors Charlie Baker (MA) and Larry Hogan (MD); Democrats mentioned were Andrew Cuomo (NY), J.B. Pritzger (IL), Gavin Newsome (CA), Gretchen Whitmer (MI), Jay Inslee (WA).
Governor DeWine’s Press Secretary Dan Tierney was contacted for comment. Specifically, he was asked:
“How did Kilmarx/NIH know in April 2020 Governor DeWine would be helpful & interested? And helpful and interested in what? What was Governor DeWine working with the NIH to create demand for? And what was he working with them to implement?”
Teirney’s response was “our office declines comment.”
BuzzFeed News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for emails to and from Fauci, the White House Chief Medical Advisor, that produced over 3,200 pages of communications.
In March of 2020 Bill Gates, frequent collaborator with Fauci, tweeted “I’ve been impressed with governors around the country” and then went on to cite DeWine, Cuomo, Inslee, Newsome and Hogan.
I’ve been impressed by governors across the country including @JayInslee, @NYGovCuomo, @GavinNewsom, @GovMikeDeWine, @GovLarryHogan, and the many others who are guiding their communities through this challenge and providing a model for us all to follow.
— Bill Gates (@BillGates) March 27, 2020
An index grading U.S. states on COVID restrictions (using 13 metrics) ranked New York, California, Maryland and Massachusetts in the category ‘many restrictions, high COVID death rate.’
While Ohio, Illinois, Washington and Michigan were ranked ‘many restrictions, low COVID death rate,’ New Hampshire, Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona, Utah, South Dakota, Wyoming, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Missouri, North Dakota were places with ‘few restrictions, low COVID death rate.’
Regarding the correlation between restrictions and death rate, according to a peer-reviewed study by epidemiologists published in the Journal of Frontiers in Public Health, “Stringency of the measures settled to fight pandemia, including lockdown, did not appear to be linked with death rate.”
“This burden was not alleviated by more stringent public decisions. Inherent factors have predetermined the Covid-19 mortality: understanding them may improve prevention strategies by increasing population resilience through better physical fitness and immunity,” the study concluded.
Michigan still has an indoor mask mandate for non-fully vaccinated until July 1, along with crowd capacity restrictions. Ohio just dropped all COVID restrictions Wednesday. However, DeWine still urged unvaccinated Ohioans to wear masks.
As statewide mask mandates lift tomorrow, I'm reminding Ohioans of the importance of getting vaccinated against COVID-19 and for those who are not fully vaccinated to wear masks indoors. pic.twitter.com/SAWiVe8vUB
— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) June 1, 2021
The Ohio statewide mask mandate was imposed July 23 when cases were already on a downward slope – according to Ohio Department of Health records, the high point in cases occurred on November 30, 2020 when the state logged 13,468. Ohio dropped COVID restrictions Wednesday, except those on nursing homes. This after the mandate had been in effect for 131 days with the Ohio Investigative Unit measuring mask compliance at well above 90% around the state.
Images of emails obtained by BuzzFeed News via FOIA request. See more at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20793561-leopold-nih-foia-anthony-fauci-emails
While the mask mandate was in effect with high compliance, Ohio racked up its worst numbers in cases, hospitalizations and deaths according to the Ohio COVID dashboard.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released results of their tracking project spanning March – December 2020. The study found that case growth rates decreased in a range based on days implemented from 0.5 – 1.8 percent, while death rates showed a dip of 0.7 – 1.9 percent. Based on the weighted least-squares regression analysis performed, the CDC stated “daily case and death growth rates before implementation of mask mandates were not statistically different from the reference period.”
The #FauciEmails also reveal that on Feb 5 he wrote “masks are really for infected people …the typical mask you buy in a drugstore is not really effective in keeping out virus.” The day before he wrote “most transmissions occur from someone who is symptomatic.”
Images of emails obtained by BuzzFeed News via FOIA request. See more at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/20793561-leopold-nih-foia-anthony-fauci-emails
Even if lockdowns and restrictions are not easily correlated to lowering the pandemic death rate, they have been linked to our children and economy.
DeWine’s lockdown and subsequent restrictions caused a massive runup in unemployment claims in Ohio and the mismanagement of over $2.1 billion that was wrongly paid because of mistakes and fraud.
Additionally, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reported that school closures involving primary students aged 5-11 years resulted in a loss of an estimated 13.8 million years of life expectancy across the 24.2 million school children in that age range in the United States.
The study concluded “[f]uture decisions regarding school closures during the pandemic should consider the association between educational disruption and decreased expected lifespan and give greater weight to the potential outcomes of school closure on children’s health.”
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Jack Windsor is Statehouse Reporter at The Ohio Star. Windsor is also an independent investigative reporter. Follow Jack on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected]
You do realize that there was language inserted into Ohio budget bill in May 2019 re: giving practically unlimited powers to the governor (lockdown of people and businesses, etc) in case of pandemic? Many freedom groups including health freedom Ohio and Ohio advocates for medical freedom helped bring awareness to citizens who stood up against that unprecedented and (we thought) ridiculous power grab to have that language removed from our budget bill. Fauci isn’t the only one who needs investigated.