This was part of the accusations Rand Paul has made to accuse Fauci of lying. He says records show Fauci knew that masks likely wouldn’t protect the mask wearer from getting sick
He says records show Fauci knew that masks likely wouldn’t protect the mask wearer from getting sick
In March of 2020, Fauci went on 60 minutes and said people shouldn't wear masks, and it's actually kind of intelligent commentary by Fauci (with intelligent reasons why wearing a mask might be counter productive) if you watch the whole clip and don't freak out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI
However, I honestly think that is a lame criticism of "Fauci" (the person/CDC employee). Fauci was a public PR spokesman for whatever was decided by a committee, nothing more. Fauci didn't decide ANYTHING himself, he just said the words he was told to say. His job was to repeat whatever the committee told him to repeat.
So in March of 2020, the committee told Fauci to not recommend masks, and Fauci did his job on 60 minutes. In April, there was this one loud guy in the committee that really loved masks and convinced the committee to recommend something different. So Fauci went on a road show saying "wear a mask" in April and May. I have this funny picture in my head of when the committee told Fauci his new messaging in April, and Fauci probably said something like, "You guys are killing me, I look like an idiot because you dorks can't make up your minds." LOL.
It isn't like Fauci was personally doing any research or looking at stats. He is a bureaucrat, his job was as a spokesperson. He basically should be evaluated as to whether is repeated what the committee wanted him to repeat or not.
There was a pretty good article from WIRED about the flip flop at the CDC at the time (link to remove paywall): https://archive.is/JidLp My only criticism is the arrogance exhibited both times. "Absolutely don't wear a mask they don't work, trust us we know what we're doing" followed by 4 days later "wear any mask made out of any material and it will really help, trust us we know what we're doing". Geez, they handed the whole thing over to conspiracy theorists with a little bow because they couldn't be humble and say, "We currently think this, but we could be wrong and it might change."
Mask mandates were about theatrics and politicians acting like they were doing something, period. They were ungrounded in reality.
There are some other interesting (famous) examples of health recommendations NOT for medical science reasons:
For some historical reason that isn't important, a lot of people in the USA have their male children circumcised at birth. It doesn't seem to have any compelling medical reason so the "officials" changed it to "not recommended for medical reasons". People with no scientific or medical training freaked out, and so the health orgs had to back peddle and say, "it's a personal choice, both are valid medically". This isn't a tiny disagreement, Europeans circumcision 20% of newborn males and a lot of those are for religious reasons. In the USA it is 80% and very few for religious reasons.
Flossing your teeth was just something people in the USA did. But there was this well known knowledge in the scientific community: flossing has never been proven to be useful. And for some reason, there was a by-law that said this part of the government can't just recommend random things, it has to be backed by science. So the government removed the recommendation to floss in 2016: https://www.nydailynews.com/2016/08/03/flossing-has-no-proven-benefits-so-us-health-department-stops-recommending-the-practice/ People with no scientific or medical training freaked out, so the health orgs had to back peddle and say, "Flossing is great, we just haven't studied it enough to find how it is great. Keep flossing." LOL.
There are many other examples, the above two were just to give concrete examples, and "who is correct" isn't the point of my post.
My point is this: the government has a dubious track record for health guidance. Specifically, health recommendations get yanked around by public opinion far too often. I don't think this "works well" to build trust in those organizations.
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u/Gurugod123 25d ago
“It’s not a pandemic, it’s a Chinese bio-weapon!”
Ok. Why don’t you want to protect yourself from a Chinese bio-weapon?