The images above are what caused our Deirdre to become a little concerned this morning.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the physician who led the nation’s infectious disease response for decades, is appearing before a Senate committee today. For Vic, the hearing is personal.

He has often joked around the Conference Room that Dr. Fauci once testified directly to him—not before Congress, but in a government conference room during the first SARS epidemic more than twenty years ago.

Back in 2003, Vic was not a physician or biomedical researcher. His background was in publishing, naval aviation, intelligence, and defense resource management. At the Pentagon he managed a major budget program when SARS emerged as a potential national security concern. Because of those responsibilities, he was assigned to participate in an interagency SARS Task Force chaired by Dr. Fauci, then Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he would hold for nearly four decades.

Vic was hardly a principal in those meetings. He describes himself as “just a strap hanger”—someone there to observe and help coordinate resources while the medical experts debated the emerging threat.

At what proved to be the final meeting he attended, several researchers expressed concern that important questions about biological warfare and emerging pathogens might not receive the attention they deserved.

As the meeting broke up and people gathered near the door, someone asked:

“What about the impact of the UN Security Council resolution? Won’t that prevent research into some of these biological warfare issues that still need examination?”

Vic remembers the room growing quiet.

Dr. Fauci turned calmly and replied:

“I have it covered.”

Then he left.

Nothing further was said publicly on the subject that Vic recalls.

Years later came COVID-19, unprecedented government restrictions, the nationwide vaccination campaign, and requirements that affected millions of Americans—including federal travel policies.

For Vic, that history became intensely personal. Following vaccination, he suffered severe blood-clotting complications that ultimately required emergency vascular surgery and removed some toes that no longer received blood. It left him facing a long recovery. Whether readers agree with his conclusions or not, those experiences inevitably shape how he views today’s hearing.

This morning, Dr. Fauci is again on Capitol Hill, where he has invoked his constitutional rights in response to some questions from members of Congress.

Watching the proceedings, Vic finds himself thinking back to that quiet moment after a SARS Task Force meeting more than two decades ago, when a single sentence—”I have it covered”—seemed to close a discussion whose consequences would not become apparent for many years.

In his diary, the Good Doctor laid out some matters on which this morning he prefers to take The Fifth. We can take our own.
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