Back in February 2020: "There's no need to wear masks. Feel free to use the subway."

Quotes might be a bit off, but Fauci's words basically amounted to this

I've seen people try to write this off as "not wanting to start a panic" and "trying to secure masks for hospitals" but that's just a copout.
If they'd initiated a lockdown sooner millions of people wouldn't have died. They killed them on purpose because they were elderly and didn't serve the machine. Also millions of people wouldn't have gotten long-COVID with nearly as bad a viral load.