5 ms·

Wow, this is not a good look. There was absolutely a shortage of PPP among healthcare institutions in the areas that were hit by COVID. If 350 million America

by jariel 6y ago

Wow, this is not a good look. There was absolutely a shortage of PPP among healthcare institutions in the areas that were hit by COVID. If 350 million Americans in a giant panic, decided to make a run on PPE, then there would be serious supply chain problems and it could have adversely affected the medical system. The strategy of prioritising Hospitals, in face of a pandemic (and they use all kinds of masks, not just N95) - was actually quite rational. In the initial phase of the pandemic, masks should be allocated where they have a very obvious effect. Then, once they can be produced in much greater quantities, then it makes sense for individuals to start wearing them whereby we can help a little bit with transmissibility in the general population. 'The Lie' was to downplay the effectiveness of masks early, and then embellish the effectiveness later on - but that is the communications strategy behind a rational plan. In a war, it's probably more important that the soldiers have access to weapons, they are the most effective at leveraging them. Having weapons at the home front might be helpful, but much more marginally so. There was a 'policy reversal' due to material facts on the ground with respect to PPE availability, but that's consistent with the overall strategy. As far as 'mask wearing in public' - it's not just 'your decision' because of the fact that you're putting others at risk and that due to the high nature of transmissibility, it becomes a systematic problem. It's not like wearing seatbelts where it affects mostly you. It's like if you were in an accident and not wearing a seatbelt, and as a result, you hurt 10 other people.

BrendanEich 6y ago
Daigou shoppers did buy up all over-the-counter masks in January and February, for some strange reason :-/. Amazon N95 and hazmat stocks ran low in those months too: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/coronavirus/ https://www.junglescout.com/blog/coronavirus/ Purell and water bottles ran short and gougers gouged. By March when Fauci spoke against mask mandates, civilian-mandated mask supply chains had recovered. We bought a bunch then without trouble. But early shortages and gouging for various products are all beside the point. Mandates on civilians that passed in March and April by county and state health orders were for people to wear polypropylene and cloth masks, not N95s or hazmat suits. Cloth and polyprop are not used by HCWs, and Fauci was not saying "yes" to people wearing those mandated kinds of masks, while saying "no" to people buying N95s. He was saying no to masks, period, full stop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a4RriBrhg&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a4RriBrhg&feature=emb_logo He gave the same long-standard talking points against mass masking that the WHO and CDC, as well as the US Surgeon General, had made.
- jariel 6y ago
  So there are some things that are 'slightly off' in your statement, enough to cause some odd conclusions - especially in the context of public communications. With respect to timing, there was no pandemic in January, we're not going to see 'public fear and pandemonium' until it hits home, which wasn't until March. It wasn't until this point could there have been a true run on anything at least in the US. The delineation between HCW PPE and 'civilian' PPE is basically moot: both N95 and surgical masks are widely used by civilians and HC. Given the above, if there were any real impetus by 'the nations top doctor' to buy masks there would have been a massive run on all kinds of masks. The reason that 'you are able to buy something' is precisely because the policy was 'masks are not important'. Understand that in 2020 (and arguably today), nobody knew the difference between the various kinds of masks. 'N95' was not in the public lexicon. Masks are Masks. If the 1/2 of Americans that seem to be concerned about COVID felt that they needed masks, they would have bought them. It would be impossible for Dr. Fauci or anyone else to say: "Buy this kind of mask over here, but that other kind of mask, don't worry about that, you don't need it" - this is beyond the threshold of complexity of something you can effectively message to 350 Million people. The amount of pricing pressure etc. would have made it clearly more difficult for HCW around the world to get access to much of the gear they needed - we know this because even without face masks doctrine, there were a lot of shortages. Doctors in many facilities were resigned to having to re-use a lot of gear - including masks. If there were a public stampede for those masks, they would have had critical shortages that would have materially affected outcomes. It wasn't until summer 2020, when COVID numbers started to come under control, that 'resource sharing' started to become effective, and that supply chains truly started to be able to handle demand did things start to seem more reasonable. Only in June/July did a lot of HC centres across the nation start to receive major shipments of PPE. At that point 'we made it through Phase 1' - at which time, it started to make sense to make masks part of the public health strategy. So then the communication shifts: they start telling us how great masks are, how they can help us, and that we should wear them. Obviously, this feels disingenuous, but it's not. Given the risk in the system, even in hindsight, it was a perfectly reasonable strategy. Finally, it was not 'Dr. Fauci' - it was the same across the Western world. UK and Canada started mandating in July, France in August.
  - deleted 6y ago

by jariel 6y ago

BrendanEich 6y ago

Daigou shoppers did buy up all over-the-counter masks in January and February, for some strange reason :-/. Amazon N95 and hazmat stocks ran low in those months too: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/coronavirus/ https://www.junglescout.com/blog/coronavirus/ Purell and water bottles ran short and gougers gouged. By March when Fauci spoke against mask mandates, civilian-mandated mask supply chains had recovered. We bought a bunch then without trouble. But early shortages and gouging for various products are all beside the point. Mandates on civilians that passed in March and April by county and state health orders were for people to wear polypropylene and cloth masks, not N95s or hazmat suits. Cloth and polyprop are not used by HCWs, and Fauci was not saying "yes" to people wearing those mandated kinds of masks, while saying "no" to people buying N95s. He was saying no to masks, period, full stop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a4RriBrhg&feature=emb_logo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06a4RriBrhg&feature=emb_logo He gave the same long-standard talking points against mass masking that the WHO and CDC, as well as the US Surgeon General, had made.

jariel 6y ago
So there are some things that are 'slightly off' in your statement, enough to cause some odd conclusions - especially in the context of public communications. With respect to timing, there was no pandemic in January, we're not going to see 'public fear and pandemonium' until it hits home, which wasn't until March. It wasn't until this point could there have been a true run on anything at least in the US. The delineation between HCW PPE and 'civilian' PPE is basically moot: both N95 and surgical masks are widely used by civilians and HC. Given the above, if there were any real impetus by 'the nations top doctor' to buy masks there would have been a massive run on all kinds of masks. The reason that 'you are able to buy something' is precisely because the policy was 'masks are not important'. Understand that in 2020 (and arguably today), nobody knew the difference between the various kinds of masks. 'N95' was not in the public lexicon. Masks are Masks. If the 1/2 of Americans that seem to be concerned about COVID felt that they needed masks, they would have bought them. It would be impossible for Dr. Fauci or anyone else to say: "Buy this kind of mask over here, but that other kind of mask, don't worry about that, you don't need it" - this is beyond the threshold of complexity of something you can effectively message to 350 Million people. The amount of pricing pressure etc. would have made it clearly more difficult for HCW around the world to get access to much of the gear they needed - we know this because even without face masks doctrine, there were a lot of shortages. Doctors in many facilities were resigned to having to re-use a lot of gear - including masks. If there were a public stampede for those masks, they would have had critical shortages that would have materially affected outcomes. It wasn't until summer 2020, when COVID numbers started to come under control, that 'resource sharing' started to become effective, and that supply chains truly started to be able to handle demand did things start to seem more reasonable. Only in June/July did a lot of HC centres across the nation start to receive major shipments of PPE. At that point 'we made it through Phase 1' - at which time, it started to make sense to make masks part of the public health strategy. So then the communication shifts: they start telling us how great masks are, how they can help us, and that we should wear them. Obviously, this feels disingenuous, but it's not. Given the risk in the system, even in hindsight, it was a perfectly reasonable strategy. Finally, it was not 'Dr. Fauci' - it was the same across the Western world. UK and Canada started mandating in July, France in August.
- deleted 6y ago