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I know this gets repeated a lot, but that doesn't make it more true. Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks", and "we changed our message about ma

I know this gets repeated a lot, but that doesn't make it more true. Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks", and "we changed our message about masks" doesn't count. The reality is that the knowledge about Covid changed significantly in march/April last year. In particular the understanding about unsymptomatic spread lead to a significant change of thinking. That makes sense, if the virus only spreads from sick people, the advice for everyone to wear a mask is not good health policy especially if there is a shortage. You want to prioritise people who get in contact with sick people and prevent sick people to go out. However, if unsymptomatic people spread the virus, you want everyone to wear masks, because you can't prevent spreaders to go out. But the masks are different, you want cloth masks more than n95, because it is about protecting others. The below article is one which elaborates on the whole discussion https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/29/did-anthony-fauci-lie-masks-march-marco-rubio-said/4068162001/ https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/29/did-...

avereveard 5y ago
If they didn't suspect that an "atypical pneumonia" as it was called since the beginning had an aereosol component a case can be made that they were unfit for their job If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of that function The other cases just convert into variations of them politicising a pandemic to unknown ends As for the WHO, these organisations shouldn't have an easy way out of their responsibilities
- cycomanic 5y ago
  Have you read what I wrote? Because you sure are not responding to it.
- usrusr 5y ago
  The “not aerosol“ hypothesis was based on the assumption that the spread rate would have been much higher than observed with an aerosol capable virus. Turns out this one just happened to be quite bad at spreading amongst humans, despite being capable of residing in the air for quite a while. It's rather unsurprising then that we now see many mutations that fix some low hanging fruit "bugs", bringing the spread closer to what people would have expected. Arguably hope may have been a factor in weighing that hypothesis, but that's truly nothing anyone should be blamed for.
  - avereveard 5y ago
    pneumonia and influenza whose main transmission vector is contact:
    - usrusr 5y ago
      Droplet is the "popular" middle ground. Contact is completely overshadowed by both types of air travel unless air travel is either completely out of the picture (non-respiratory viruses like various herpes) or if the virus particles excel at durability outside the body (e.g. the rhinovirus family, whereas being bad at this is an outcome of the defining property of corona viruses, they are short-"lived" almost by definition). And droplet basically translates to: "yes, masks would help, but simply keeping a few feet of distance will be just as good". Unfortunately, distance does to aerosol transmission what soda cans do to a wildfire.
- wholinator2 5y ago
  Im not saying what they did was right, but look at toilet paper. Obviously the masses cannot handle news that something is in short supply. The CDC knew that if they said, "masks work, there's not enough masks, don't buy them cause doctors need them" that 95% of America would hear only the first two clauses and go out to buy as many masks as possible. All the masks would disappear, there would be a panic and hysteria more than there already was, and doctors would end up worse off than before. Look at the gas crisis in the south. It's obvious that enough of America truly _are_ "petulant children" as you say that they cannot be trusted with such information. Given an opportunity, the American people will choose to make the national situation worse, to improve their personal one. I think the main disconnect here is that the CDC communicated like it's job was to say what was needed for the best possible outcome (and still made mistakes and miscalculations) while (some of) the people believe the CDCs job is to communicate the whole truth 100% of the time. We can see from looking back at literally any war or the 1918 flu pandemic that the populace is routinely lied to for the 'benefit' of the country. What is happening now is that we can instantly fact check and communicate to millions of people our opinions on what was said. I am not saying they were right to do it, but attempting to provide the framework in which is becomes believable that _they_ believed it was right to do it.
  - splithalf 5y ago
    I’d say that what they did was right. The noble lie is by definition noble. The news media acting as (not always unwitting) accomplices is the real problem.
  - dmatech 5y ago
    This advanced the short-term goal of keeping masks available to doctors at the expense of the long-term goal of maintaining their own credibility. People tell me that I should trust those those who lie to me because at least their goals are honorable. I disagree. While it might be possible to lie to someone you trying to help or even someone you dearly love, it's pretty much by definition not something you do to someone you respect. I generally am wary of help from people who don't respect me. Perhaps it would be helpful to have separate news channels for petulant children who need to be lied to so that they don't destroy civilization. Everyone else could watch the real news. Of course, nobody wants to be told they're a petulant child.
ddxxdd 5y ago
2 weeks of asymptomatic spread has been known about since late January (edit: in 2020). [0] And Fauci said at one point (2/14/2020): “There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” [1] And at another point (6/15/2020): "[...] we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N-95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply." [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavirus-pandemic-worse-by-lying-about-masks/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavi...
- cout 5y ago
  The director of the CDC during most of the pandemic was Robert Redfield. Dr. Fauci is director of the NIH, so his statements are not relevant to the credibility of the CDC. In defense of Dr. Fauci's statement, saying "there is no reason right now to wear a mask" is quite different from "masks are ineffective", as it keeps getting paraphrased. The latter is obviously absurd, as there were numerous studies on the effectiveness of masks against various viruses prior to 2020, just not against SARS-CoV-2 specifically, since as far as we know it didn't exist yet.
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    Fauci, and way too many Medical Doctors, seemed guenuinly confused over the efficacy of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of he Covid virus. A lot medical professionals were claiming the average person wearing a mask will make things worse by putting it on ineffectively. I heard one doctor say, "All it takes is one virus particle to become infected. I haven't heard any doctor talk about Viral Loads, even now. My point is our medical professionals seemed as much in the "I just don't know?" catagory as the rest of us with this virus. I'm still shocked researchers found a vaccine.
    - Veen 5y ago
      Zeynep Tufekci published an excellent article about this. Her thesis is that medical dogma insisted COVID (and other infections) spread through droplets and not aerosols. Social distancing is enough to prevent infection from droplets because they don't travel far. That, it turns out, is wrong, and COVID can spread through smaller respiratory particles that can float, making social distancing alone ineffective. https://www.theinsight.org/p/the-few-sentences-that-explain-much https://www.theinsight.org/p/the-few-sentences-that-explain-...
sfifs 5y ago
Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus). The various health organizations simply decided to prioritize supply for the medical community till production could ramp up by making statements that dissuade people from panic buying (as happened with say Toilet paper and flour later). While it's understandable, it doesn't make the early statements not "lies" and erosion in trust is a consequence.
- DanBC 5y ago
  > Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus) We have a lot of research into mask use, both to protect the wearer and to protect people around the wearer. Can you point to any that you think CDC should have been using to support mask wearing in the general public? You can argue about the level of evidence required (organisations like CDC strongly prefer well run meta analyses or a bunch of RCTs), but to say "it's always been known" simply isn't true.
  - sfifs 5y ago
    I'd argue it has always been known that masks would protect both patients and wearers even from first principles and also how past pandemics with a less infectious virus were handled in Asia and from how common cold and flu dropped as a side effect. The virus spreads via droplets exhaled or emitted from nose and mouth. What happens when something obstructs that flow - the % of droplets going in & out & velocity decreases and likelihood of transmission reduces. Why do you think surgeons wear masks - it's both to protect the patient and the surgeon from droplet borne infections. What was unknown was whether it was economical to wear masks widely and whether there were supplies, not that it would work.
harry8 5y ago
> Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks" The Street: "So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?" Fauci: "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

avereveard 5y ago

If they didn't suspect that an "atypical pneumonia" as it was called since the beginning had an aereosol component a case can be made that they were unfit for their job If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of that function The other cases just convert into variations of them politicising a pandemic to unknown ends As for the WHO, these organisations shouldn't have an easy way out of their responsibilities

cycomanic 5y ago
Have you read what I wrote? Because you sure are not responding to it.
usrusr 5y ago
The “not aerosol“ hypothesis was based on the assumption that the spread rate would have been much higher than observed with an aerosol capable virus. Turns out this one just happened to be quite bad at spreading amongst humans, despite being capable of residing in the air for quite a while. It's rather unsurprising then that we now see many mutations that fix some low hanging fruit "bugs", bringing the spread closer to what people would have expected. Arguably hope may have been a factor in weighing that hypothesis, but that's truly nothing anyone should be blamed for.
- avereveard 5y ago
  pneumonia and influenza whose main transmission vector is contact:
  - usrusr 5y ago
    Droplet is the "popular" middle ground. Contact is completely overshadowed by both types of air travel unless air travel is either completely out of the picture (non-respiratory viruses like various herpes) or if the virus particles excel at durability outside the body (e.g. the rhinovirus family, whereas being bad at this is an outcome of the defining property of corona viruses, they are short-"lived" almost by definition). And droplet basically translates to: "yes, masks would help, but simply keeping a few feet of distance will be just as good". Unfortunately, distance does to aerosol transmission what soda cans do to a wildfire.
wholinator2 5y ago
Im not saying what they did was right, but look at toilet paper. Obviously the masses cannot handle news that something is in short supply. The CDC knew that if they said, "masks work, there's not enough masks, don't buy them cause doctors need them" that 95% of America would hear only the first two clauses and go out to buy as many masks as possible. All the masks would disappear, there would be a panic and hysteria more than there already was, and doctors would end up worse off than before. Look at the gas crisis in the south. It's obvious that enough of America truly _are_ "petulant children" as you say that they cannot be trusted with such information. Given an opportunity, the American people will choose to make the national situation worse, to improve their personal one. I think the main disconnect here is that the CDC communicated like it's job was to say what was needed for the best possible outcome (and still made mistakes and miscalculations) while (some of) the people believe the CDCs job is to communicate the whole truth 100% of the time. We can see from looking back at literally any war or the 1918 flu pandemic that the populace is routinely lied to for the 'benefit' of the country. What is happening now is that we can instantly fact check and communicate to millions of people our opinions on what was said. I am not saying they were right to do it, but attempting to provide the framework in which is becomes believable that _they_ believed it was right to do it.
- splithalf 5y ago
  I’d say that what they did was right. The noble lie is by definition noble. The news media acting as (not always unwitting) accomplices is the real problem.
- dmatech 5y ago
  This advanced the short-term goal of keeping masks available to doctors at the expense of the long-term goal of maintaining their own credibility. People tell me that I should trust those those who lie to me because at least their goals are honorable. I disagree. While it might be possible to lie to someone you trying to help or even someone you dearly love, it's pretty much by definition not something you do to someone you respect. I generally am wary of help from people who don't respect me. Perhaps it would be helpful to have separate news channels for petulant children who need to be lied to so that they don't destroy civilization. Everyone else could watch the real news. Of course, nobody wants to be told they're a petulant child.

ddxxdd 5y ago

2 weeks of asymptomatic spread has been known about since late January (edit: in 2020). [0] And Fauci said at one point (2/14/2020): “There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” [1] And at another point (6/15/2020): "[...] we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N-95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply." [1] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavirus-pandemic-worse-by-lying-about-masks/ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavi...

cout 5y ago
The director of the CDC during most of the pandemic was Robert Redfield. Dr. Fauci is director of the NIH, so his statements are not relevant to the credibility of the CDC. In defense of Dr. Fauci's statement, saying "there is no reason right now to wear a mask" is quite different from "masks are ineffective", as it keeps getting paraphrased. The latter is obviously absurd, as there were numerous studies on the effectiveness of masks against various viruses prior to 2020, just not against SARS-CoV-2 specifically, since as far as we know it didn't exist yet.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  Fauci, and way too many Medical Doctors, seemed guenuinly confused over the efficacy of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of he Covid virus. A lot medical professionals were claiming the average person wearing a mask will make things worse by putting it on ineffectively. I heard one doctor say, "All it takes is one virus particle to become infected. I haven't heard any doctor talk about Viral Loads, even now. My point is our medical professionals seemed as much in the "I just don't know?" catagory as the rest of us with this virus. I'm still shocked researchers found a vaccine.
  - Veen 5y ago
    Zeynep Tufekci published an excellent article about this. Her thesis is that medical dogma insisted COVID (and other infections) spread through droplets and not aerosols. Social distancing is enough to prevent infection from droplets because they don't travel far. That, it turns out, is wrong, and COVID can spread through smaller respiratory particles that can float, making social distancing alone ineffective. https://www.theinsight.org/p/the-few-sentences-that-explain-much https://www.theinsight.org/p/the-few-sentences-that-explain-...

sfifs 5y ago

Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus). The various health organizations simply decided to prioritize supply for the medical community till production could ramp up by making statements that dissuade people from panic buying (as happened with say Toilet paper and flour later). While it's understandable, it doesn't make the early statements not "lies" and erosion in trust is a consequence.

DanBC 5y ago
> Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus) We have a lot of research into mask use, both to protect the wearer and to protect people around the wearer. Can you point to any that you think CDC should have been using to support mask wearing in the general public? You can argue about the level of evidence required (organisations like CDC strongly prefer well run meta analyses or a bunch of RCTs), but to say "it's always been known" simply isn't true.
- sfifs 5y ago
  I'd argue it has always been known that masks would protect both patients and wearers even from first principles and also how past pandemics with a less infectious virus were handled in Asia and from how common cold and flu dropped as a side effect. The virus spreads via droplets exhaled or emitted from nose and mouth. What happens when something obstructs that flow - the % of droplets going in & out & velocity decreases and likelihood of transmission reduces. Why do you think surgeons wear masks - it's both to protect the patient and the surgeon from droplet borne infections. What was unknown was whether it was economical to wear masks widely and whether there were supplies, not that it would work.

harry8 5y ago

> Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks" The Street: "So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?" Fauci: "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected." https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-directive-coronavirus https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...