Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus

you’re a fuckin’ liar

“False in one thing, false in everything”. At common law, it is the legal principle that a witness who testifies falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter. It’s also the reason lawyers try so hard to dig up and expose witnesses’ prior contradictory statements: “were you lying then, or are you lying now?” is always a question popular with juries, especially when they conclude, as they usually do, that the answer is “both”.

This brings us to the C.D.C. and its report that “less than 10% of COVID infections can be traced to outdoor transmission. The actual number is, in fact, less than one-tenth of one percent — essentially zero — so the CDC’s statistic is, while technically accurate, is complete bullshit. Even that most CDC-supportive institution, the NYT, calls it “misleading”.

Saying that less than 10 percent of Covid transmission occurs outdoors is akin to saying that sharks attack fewer than 20,000 swimmers a year. (The actual worldwide number is around 150.) It’s both true and deceiving.

Not just deceiving, deliberately deceptive, as have been so many of the health authorities’ “noble lies”.

So what are we to make of Yale New Haven Health System’s Chief Clinical Specialist Tom Balcezak, who at a press conference Monday warned against dining in restaurants, predicted that “vaccines and masking will have to continue to be part of everyday life — that’s the reality we live in”, urged that all children be masked, falsely claiming, “because it works”, and then vouched for the trustworthiness of our country’s chief drug regulation agency:

Balcezak said he believed there was a portion of the US population who had waited for full FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine to get vaccinated. With full FDA approval, there is hope that more people will choose to get vaccinated. 

“The FDA is the premiere drug regulatory agency in the world. Giving it their full-throated approval is an incredible stamp of approval. The FDA does not cut corners. They examined reams and reams of data submitted to them. There’s been 200 million Americans vaccinated and that’s an enormous amount of information they’ve collected on safety and efficacy.”

The CDC.; the FDA; Fauci; the Yale New Haven Health System: falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

UPDATE: The Bee’s on it