Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been making up the rules as they go, with no regard for the scientific data they claim to respect.

“I didn’t want to look like I was giving mixed signals,” Fauci said when asked why he has still been wearing masks in public settings despite being fully inoculated against COVID-19. “But being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low.”

Fauci’s desire to wait for the CDC’s new guidance and roll it out at the right time might have been understandable if he hadn’t spent the past year lecturing people who don’t “follow the science.” But clearly, the science hasn’t been driving Fauci’s messaging.

Otherwise, he would have started encouraging vaccinated adults to live their lives again restriction-free as soon as their two-week inoculation period was up. Instead, he did the opposite, spreading doubt about the vaccines’ effectiveness along the way.