4 ms·
The exact quote from the Surgeon General Jerome Adams in March 2020 was: "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general p
by mwigdahl 5y ago
The exact quote from the Surgeon General Jerome Adams in March 2020 was:
"Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
Yes, they wanted to preserve mask supply for healthcare providers, but there was also an explicit statement that they were not effective for preventing infection.
You can retrospectively split hairs over the exact meaning of "preventing the general public from catching #Coronavirus", but the clear message being pushed at the time was that you shouldn't buy masks because they weren't going to work. Whether he actually believed this or whether this was a cynical manipulation to get the effect desired (lower demand for the limited supply of masks) is irrelevant. "Masks don't work" was the message being sold to the public.
- kadoban 5y agoIf masks don't work, full stop, the entire message is nonsense. Because then what's the point of giving them to healthcare providers exactly? So it should be obvious with a little thought that it is context-specific, the context being low community spread and few available masks. Also, I mean it's from a Trump appointtee, the man who spent most of the pandemic downplaying the seriousness of said pandemic. I'm not sure how much you're expecting here, but it's definitely too much.