rather than rephrashing, i'll just repeat what i posted yesterday about what fauci said a year ago[0]: > "what fauci said was true (given tolerance for the nat

rather than rephrashing, i'll just repeat what i posted yesterday about what fauci said a year ago[0]: > "what fauci said was true (given tolerance for the natural ambiguity inherent in speech). in most cases, masks have been, and continue to be, primarily a palliative and signaling device, not a mitigation. for healthcare workers, it's actually an augmentative mitigation used with other imperfect mitigations in controlled circumstances to get the best possible outcomes from their use. masks are poorer mitigations in most general circumstances in comparison to the easier alternative that is (context-specific) distancing." > > "at various points, he's buckled to the prevailing political winds to keep his job, but that particular statement was a moment of lucidity and frankness. it threatened the dominant mediopolitical narrative, so he eventually backed off." masks are valuable to politicians and the media for the concrete feedback it provides for their own power and voice. it emboldens politicians as the first order effect, while other order effects are simply not that important to them. that's what "politicizing masks" means. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26604508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26604508