It’s been apparent for a long time that those who have benefited the most from COVID hysteria are not going to suddenly let it go now that cases and deaths are waning. Because of that, despite the immense ground gained by vaccinations and the prevalence of natural immunity, the “Delta-variant” of COVID has now taken center stage.

There was always going to be a “next” thing for people like Dr. Anthony Fauci to latch onto. Those magazine spreads don’t write themselves, obviously.

Dr. Anthony Fauci on the Delta variant: "If you are not vaccinated you are at considerable risk …"

"…What you are gonna see among under-vaccinated regions … you're gonna see these individual types of blips. It's almost like it's going to be two Americas." pic.twitter.com/0CEbqsxiAQ

— The Recount (@therecount) June 30, 2021

This is reminiscent of Fauci’s failed predictions that Florida would end up an outsized COVID hotspot while at the same time he was praising New York. Florida, which largely ignoring Fauci’s advice, ended up with the 27th ranked COVID death rate in the country despite having the largest total at-risk population (i.e. seniors) by far in the nation.

Of course, Fauci is never made to answer for his prior failures and contradictions. Thus, he’s back on TV fear-mongering about the Delta variant now. The problem is that the things he’s saying aren’t back by scientific data, and for the fact-checkers, being a government bureaucrat does not denote scientific truth.

For example, Fauci claimed a few days ago that the Delta variant is “deadlier.” That’s simply untrue, and Sen. Rand Paul provides the data to prove it.

Don’t let the fearmongers win. New public England study of delta variant shows 44 deaths out of 53,822 (.08%) in unvaccinated group. Hmmm.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) June 29, 2021

Let’s do some quick math here because being accurate is important. This is not a question of whether people should be cautious about the Delta variant. Certainly, if you are in a high-risk demographic, it would behoove you to get vaccinated. Regardless, what this is about is whether the government can just openly lie in order to stoke fear they feel is helpful to their end goals.

The United States, per John Hopkins, has had 33,600,000 cases of COVID diagnosed and 604,000 deaths. That’s a case to fatality ratio of 1.8%. Compare that with the 0.8% case to death rate observed for the Delta variant in the new study out of England, and it is quite clear that it is not, in fact, a deadlier variant of the virus. Further, we know that current vaccines protect against the Delta variant when it comes to serious illness and death.

For posterity, here are some of the data from the UK’s study on the Delta variant. As you can see, the death rates are much closer to the regular flu than regular COVID.

Dear @lapublichealth from an actual MD and using study data re the "Delta Variant" also including pictures from the UK studies which show the same…quit the fear porn. Literally the numbers are the flu https://t.co/8ZtvecgKOl pic.twitter.com/2drZvwdvYu

— Scott "CA is proof liberals are dangerous" (@ScottC20012) June 30, 2021

Now, the caveat here is that the death rates for both mainline COVID and the Delta variant are obviously somewhat lower than what the case to fatality ratios show us. For every diagnosed case, there are likely several more that were asymptomatic and never diagnosed. The Delta variant is more transmissible according to the data we have.

Regardless, no amount of good intentions justifies lying to the public. Some doctors, including Fauci, saying something does not make it true if the data doesn’t show it’s true. For example, a doctor from Brown University also said the Delta variant is more deadly. But the data does not back that up.

We should be operating with facts, not supposition or manufactured fear. You can still encourage people to get vaccinated without burning the credibility of the scientific community along the way.