Anthony Fauci, the CDC shutdown czar, must be Iago’s cousin. The CDC shutdown czar has given the nation whiplash on issue after issue concerning the Virus from the Country that Shall not be Named, which is just what Iago does when trying to identify the source of his hatred for Othello. Iago may be Shakespeare’s premier villain, but even so, he’s more fun than Fauci, so we’ll start with Iago, explaining that he hates the warrior-hero of Venice because he denied him a promotion:

Iago: “Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him: and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he… evades them…for, ‘Certes,’ says he,
‘I have already chose my officer.’
And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows…”

OK, so that’s why Iago hates Othello. He says it as clearly as Fauci initially said that students should stay out of school, and that masks were not effective in limited the spread of the disease. Iago was passed over for promotion, students should stay out of school, and masks are not effective. Got it.

Iago: “The Moor (howbeit that I endure him not)
Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
And I dare think he’ll prove to Desdemona
A most dear husband. Now I do love her too,…”

OK, so the real story is that Iago desires Othello’s wife, Desdemonia, who as the wealthy and beautiful daughter of the high official Brabantio is the flower of Venetian aristocracy. That’s a good motive to want to do in the husband. But it’s not the same one he offered at the start of the pandemic, I mean the play.

Now, in Act II, and now that mask production has ramped up and there’s no worry about health providers having  enough supply, Fauci is saying that masks are indeed useful in limiting the spread of Othello’s jealousy, that is, of the virus. In January 2020, Fauci assured Othello, I mean the public, that asymptomatic transmission had never been the driver of outbreaks in “all the history” of respiratory illness. In August, he said such transmission was a driving factor in the community spread of the Chinese Flu.

Iago: “…For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap’d into my seat; the thought whereof
Doth (like a poisonous mineral) gnaw my inwards;
And nothing can or shall content my soul
Till I am even’d with him, wife for wife;
Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
At least into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure.”

Oh, so now it turns out that Fauci believes Othello has leap’d into Fauci’s seat; that is, slept with Fauci’s wife, and that is the reason Iago wants everyone to wear not zero masks, or one, but now two, as he suggested in January 2021; two, perhaps, and counting,

But then, after all these flip-flops, by the very head of the CDC, who’s still counting?

 

P.S. I wanted to let you all know that my recasting of Hamlet as the 2020 election is now up for sale as an e-book and paperback through this link.

‘Hamlet’s 2020 Vision; A recasting of Hamlet as the tragedy of the 2020 election,’ reimagines Hamlet as the 2020 election by substituting the main players on our national stage for the play’s original cast of characters. I think the result is highly entertaining, but it also provides surprising insights into our current predicament, and it gives readers a chance to enjoy Shakespeare’s great tragedy from an entirely new angle.