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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 a

by 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-...
    - o-__-o 5y ago
      There was information that it was aerosolized from the early days (March) We were lied to because america did not stockpile enough masks for first responders
      - nobodyandproud 5y ago
        I don’t think it was that simple. If the Wired article, which was downvoted to oblivion, is accurate then the WHO and the CDC (who parroted the WHO) bear a great deal of responsibility. They shutdown scientists who were telling them that Covid was spreading as an aerosol, way back in early 2020. The WHO now want MORE power, yet they’re not accepting accountability nor cleaning house.
    - neaanopri 5y ago
      I've read the article, I do just want to clarify the statement "making social distancing alone ineffective." It's still true that if you are covid suceptible, and if a covid-shedding person is walking around, you should try to be as far as possible from the covid. But, a brief close pass e.g. on the sidewalk, isn't as risky as sharing a 20'x10' office for hours, even if you stay >6ft the entire time.
  - brobdingnagians 5y ago
    The strange thing is that we have loads of research done over decades about all of this. It appears that the prominent doctors on the news don't know anything about it. Everything pumped out for publicity is about a sixth grade understanding of biology and epidemiology; but we know a lot more, it's just that Fauci doesn't talk about it and neither does the nightly news. If the role of journalists and the government was to inform, we would have well written articles on the loads of studies we have. Journalists should give advanced information in digestible form about topics you didn't need to know about, but which are currently relevant. Instead, we get sixth grade hand waving in propaganda form. Things like adaptive immune response, T-cells, immune escape, antibody dependent enhancement, viral loads, and lots of other things could be explained well but simply. It's a tragedy of modernity that we have so much information and so little understanding.
- o-__-o 5y ago
  Fauci had said the reason they made a misspeak about masks is because they were afraid there would not be enough for first responders
  - varjag 5y ago
    That sure helped the trust to CDC.
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Trust in the CDC and Fauci only really declined among Republican voters (and was still high). Sometimes, certain people being told not to trust you is a sign you're doing the right thing.
      - varjag 5y ago
        Inefficacy of masks is a central point in anti-maskers message, and sometimes they would cite you the whole passages from official WHO/CDC advisories. And the belated reversal is just an additional point to "scientists don't know shit" attitude. No, yeah it did tremendous damage. While there'd certainly be anti maskers without anti-mask hysteria by authorities, the scale would not be the same. It's hard to quantify but likely many tens of thousands of excess deaths globally are on WHO lies.
        ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        "anti-mask hysteria by authorities"? People were having difficulty providing evidence that Fauci admitted to telling a white lie elsewhere in these comments, yet it's widely believed by certain people that he did so. There's a link to a factcheck in the comments that quotes what he actually said and it's not at all what many people in this thread seem to sincerely, but mistakenly, think he said. So allow me to doubt that "anti-mask hysteria" was ever coming from the medical and scientific community unless I see exactly what you're talking about and evaluate it with my own eyes. But I guess if we disagree on the facts, that helps explain why we draw different conclusions.
- whack 5y ago
  > 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" If masks are effective, that would be a compelling reason for someone to wear a mask. Saying there is no reason to wear a mask, strongly implies that they aren't beneficial to the individual wearing them. Fauci must have known that this is how people would have interpreted his statements. He should have said "there are very compelling reasons not to wear a mask", which is very different from "there is no reason to wear a mask". I understand that Fauci had good intentions behind his statement. But it's very hard to regain trust after making misleading statements like the above.
tshaddox 5y ago
> “There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” Isn’t this defensible if it was indeed true that there was a temporary shortage of masks for health care workers?
- ptaipale 5y ago
  I think no. It erodes trust in medical institutions, and now we reap what was sown. The same thing was done in other countries, including mine (Finland). Result: covid deniers are still using the year-old statements from national health agency to downplay the significance of masks. "Masks are useless; the officials themselves say so", they quote. Big mistake not to be honest, even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.
  - parineum 5y ago
    >even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation. There's your issue. Saying masks are in short supply begs the question of why. Whether it's reasonable or not, no politician wants to defend their unpreparedness.
- bnralt 5y ago
  If that was their reason, then why did the change the recommendation while still in the middle of the shortage? Here's an article from months after the CDC started recommending masks, showing that widespread PPE shortages among healthcare workers were still common[1]. There seems to be a lot of post hoc rationalization for what appears to simply be a mistake. This is why accountability is so difficult. People decide ahead of time that certain organizations or individuals are right. If it looks like they made a mistake, then there must be some good reason that justifies their actions that we just don't see. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shortage-still-plagues-the-us.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shorta...
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    Wasn’t the PPE shortage and the initial recommendation for the public to not wear masks both mostly about N95 masks? From what I remember, by the time CDC was recommending masks for the public it was all about the simple cloth masks, which I don’t think I ever saw in stores before the pandemic and presumably don’t compete much with N95 masks for medical professionals.
throwaway4good 5y ago
Back in January 2020 for every medical authority saying that the virus is airborne there was at least one saying: We expect this to be similar to a harsh flu season at worst, at best the virus will burn out locally. It takes time for knowledge to get formulated, broadly accepted, and turn into actual policy. It has to be like that. Most of the time, being prepared but doing nothing is the best thing to. SARS, H1N1, Ebola + probably many others all burned out before they reached the west.
- ddxxdd 5y ago
  Have you ever heard of Aumann's Agreement Theorem? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem If scientists are looking at the same data and the same set of facts, then they cannot disagree. Back when Hong Kong health authorities were warning about 14 days of asymptomatic spread, Chinese authorities had already placed multiple cities under martial law and set up concentration camps for infected people. It's absurd that the West was still in a "wait-and-see" mindset.
  - o-__-o 5y ago
    Was it a disinformation campaign from China funneled through Hong Kong or was it actually a breakout. We didnt know if the martial law was out of caution, China only reported 80k infections. Lots of assumptions went wrong on this one
cycomanic 5y ago
Nice way of taking both quotes out of context. The link I provided has the full quote. He was essentially saying what I said above: it is unclear if it makes public health sense for everyone to wear a mask, in particular we have a shortage of masks so we should prioritise health workers, there is nothing wrong with wearing a mask though.

by ddxxdd 5y ago

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-...
  - o-__-o 5y ago
    There was information that it was aerosolized from the early days (March) We were lied to because america did not stockpile enough masks for first responders
    - nobodyandproud 5y ago
      I don’t think it was that simple. If the Wired article, which was downvoted to oblivion, is accurate then the WHO and the CDC (who parroted the WHO) bear a great deal of responsibility. They shutdown scientists who were telling them that Covid was spreading as an aerosol, way back in early 2020. The WHO now want MORE power, yet they’re not accepting accountability nor cleaning house.
  - neaanopri 5y ago
    I've read the article, I do just want to clarify the statement "making social distancing alone ineffective." It's still true that if you are covid suceptible, and if a covid-shedding person is walking around, you should try to be as far as possible from the covid. But, a brief close pass e.g. on the sidewalk, isn't as risky as sharing a 20'x10' office for hours, even if you stay >6ft the entire time.
- brobdingnagians 5y ago
  The strange thing is that we have loads of research done over decades about all of this. It appears that the prominent doctors on the news don't know anything about it. Everything pumped out for publicity is about a sixth grade understanding of biology and epidemiology; but we know a lot more, it's just that Fauci doesn't talk about it and neither does the nightly news. If the role of journalists and the government was to inform, we would have well written articles on the loads of studies we have. Journalists should give advanced information in digestible form about topics you didn't need to know about, but which are currently relevant. Instead, we get sixth grade hand waving in propaganda form. Things like adaptive immune response, T-cells, immune escape, antibody dependent enhancement, viral loads, and lots of other things could be explained well but simply. It's a tragedy of modernity that we have so much information and so little understanding.
o-__-o 5y ago
Fauci had said the reason they made a misspeak about masks is because they were afraid there would not be enough for first responders
- varjag 5y ago
  That sure helped the trust to CDC.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Trust in the CDC and Fauci only really declined among Republican voters (and was still high). Sometimes, certain people being told not to trust you is a sign you're doing the right thing.
    - varjag 5y ago
      Inefficacy of masks is a central point in anti-maskers message, and sometimes they would cite you the whole passages from official WHO/CDC advisories. And the belated reversal is just an additional point to "scientists don't know shit" attitude. No, yeah it did tremendous damage. While there'd certainly be anti maskers without anti-mask hysteria by authorities, the scale would not be the same. It's hard to quantify but likely many tens of thousands of excess deaths globally are on WHO lies.
      - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
        "anti-mask hysteria by authorities"? People were having difficulty providing evidence that Fauci admitted to telling a white lie elsewhere in these comments, yet it's widely believed by certain people that he did so. There's a link to a factcheck in the comments that quotes what he actually said and it's not at all what many people in this thread seem to sincerely, but mistakenly, think he said. So allow me to doubt that "anti-mask hysteria" was ever coming from the medical and scientific community unless I see exactly what you're talking about and evaluate it with my own eyes. But I guess if we disagree on the facts, that helps explain why we draw different conclusions.
whack 5y ago
> 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" If masks are effective, that would be a compelling reason for someone to wear a mask. Saying there is no reason to wear a mask, strongly implies that they aren't beneficial to the individual wearing them. Fauci must have known that this is how people would have interpreted his statements. He should have said "there are very compelling reasons not to wear a mask", which is very different from "there is no reason to wear a mask". I understand that Fauci had good intentions behind his statement. But it's very hard to regain trust after making misleading statements like the above.

tshaddox 5y ago

> “There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” Isn’t this defensible if it was indeed true that there was a temporary shortage of masks for health care workers?

ptaipale 5y ago
I think no. It erodes trust in medical institutions, and now we reap what was sown. The same thing was done in other countries, including mine (Finland). Result: covid deniers are still using the year-old statements from national health agency to downplay the significance of masks. "Masks are useless; the officials themselves say so", they quote. Big mistake not to be honest, even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.
- parineum 5y ago
  >even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation. There's your issue. Saying masks are in short supply begs the question of why. Whether it's reasonable or not, no politician wants to defend their unpreparedness.
bnralt 5y ago
If that was their reason, then why did the change the recommendation while still in the middle of the shortage? Here's an article from months after the CDC started recommending masks, showing that widespread PPE shortages among healthcare workers were still common[1]. There seems to be a lot of post hoc rationalization for what appears to simply be a mistake. This is why accountability is so difficult. People decide ahead of time that certain organizations or individuals are right. If it looks like they made a mistake, then there must be some good reason that justifies their actions that we just don't see. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shortage-still-plagues-the-us.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shorta...
- tshaddox 5y ago
  Wasn’t the PPE shortage and the initial recommendation for the public to not wear masks both mostly about N95 masks? From what I remember, by the time CDC was recommending masks for the public it was all about the simple cloth masks, which I don’t think I ever saw in stores before the pandemic and presumably don’t compete much with N95 masks for medical professionals.

throwaway4good 5y ago

Back in January 2020 for every medical authority saying that the virus is airborne there was at least one saying: We expect this to be similar to a harsh flu season at worst, at best the virus will burn out locally. It takes time for knowledge to get formulated, broadly accepted, and turn into actual policy. It has to be like that. Most of the time, being prepared but doing nothing is the best thing to. SARS, H1N1, Ebola + probably many others all burned out before they reached the west.

ddxxdd 5y ago
Have you ever heard of Aumann's Agreement Theorem? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem If scientists are looking at the same data and the same set of facts, then they cannot disagree. Back when Hong Kong health authorities were warning about 14 days of asymptomatic spread, Chinese authorities had already placed multiple cities under martial law and set up concentration camps for infected people. It's absurd that the West was still in a "wait-and-see" mindset.
- o-__-o 5y ago
  Was it a disinformation campaign from China funneled through Hong Kong or was it actually a breakout. We didnt know if the martial law was out of caution, China only reported 80k infections. Lots of assumptions went wrong on this one

cycomanic 5y ago

Nice way of taking both quotes out of context. The link I provided has the full quote. He was essentially saying what I said above: it is unclear if it makes public health sense for everyone to wear a mask, in particular we have a shortage of masks so we should prioritise health workers, there is nothing wrong with wearing a mask though.