I had always wondered why Fauci seemed determined to drag the pandemic on for as long as possible. At the beginning, it was obvious why. It made him the most important man in America. It also helped damage Trump politically. And all the while, it distracted attention from the fact that the virus had come from a lab he had funded. But why did he keep it going well into the Biden presidency? I think we can now see the answer. He had no intention of surrendering his position as the central figure, disappearing from the front pages, or giving up the power and adulation that came with being the man everyone looked to each morning. In the end, we got a never-ending pandemic not because of medical necessity, but because Anthony Fauci needed to feed his own narcissism.