perhaps if he had quit in March 2020 when Trump's reptilian sycophants had tried censoring mortality rates, people would have known the truth. But then again, would anyone who is actually against totalitarianism ever be promoted to that position? People who have morals wouldn't even get hired

  • Bedulge [he/him]
    ·
    4 years ago

    I honestly think people are going too far with criticizing him on the masks thing. What he said at the time was not a lie, it was backed up by what we knew at the time. And what we knew is this:

    1 - masks dont provide very good protection to the mask wearer. The purpose of masks is to protect other people from the mask wearer, if the mask wearer is infected

    2 - people didnt yet, and many still dont, understand that. They think putting a mask on protects yourself.

    4 - Early on in the pandemic, it wasn't yet known that a large portion of infected people were asymptomatic, and that asymptomatic people were still infectious

    5 - the US was facing such a severe shortage of masks in those early weeks, that they literally went to the manufacturers in Asia and offered to pay extra to buy shipments of masks that other countries had already ordered. They outbided other countries in order to jump ahead in the line. In other cases, US based mask producing companies were ordered to cancel all shipments to other countries and redirect all masks to the US instead. (These masks were made in Asia of course)

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52161995

    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-masks-idUSKBN21L253

    Putting all that together, you're left with this reasoning

    "Mask wearing by healthy people doesnt protect the wearer from infection, (even though people think it does) and since we are facing a mass shortage of masks that will be needed for medical use, we should probably go out and tell people that theres no need to hoard masks."

    So fauci went and said this

    Fauci: …There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

    LaPook: And can you get some schmutz, sort of staying inside there?

    Fauci: Of course, of course. But, when you think masks, you should think of health care providers needing them and people who are ill. The people who, when you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks — that’s fine, that’s fine. I’m not against it. If you want to do it, that’s fine.

    LaPook: But it can lead to a shortage of masks?

    Fauci: Exactly, that’s the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it.

    Which, is not a lie. It's the best info we had at the time. This is literally just how science works. We don't go around and say that early astronomers who said that the orbits of the planets were circular are lying because we now know that they are elliptical. They were saying the truth to the best extent that they knew at the time.

    If I'm missing something here or have my info messed up I'm willing to listen.

    As for not quitting, I cant imagine that we'd be better off if he had. Trump likely would have replaced him with some sycophant that would have told people to take hydroxychloroquine

    • vsaush [he/him]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Even granting that Trump may have picked worse, okay fine.

      But he should not have accepted a position in the Biden admin and cited his own failure with the initial response. He doesnt need to be there, America is a country full of talented epidemiologists that can do just as good a job and in my opinion much fucking better than this ghoul.

      • Bedulge [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        I simply do not understand these statements. Why does it matter if it protects one person or the other? If everyone (or more realistically, a majority) wore a mask, would it not protect everyone wearing it? It’s a respiratory disease. You don’t need to be a PHD expert to understand it infects you from breathing it in

        I prefer going by what the scientific evidence shows, not what people who are not PHD experts think. It might seem intuitive that mask-wearing by uninfected people helps keep them from getting sick, but there is a lack of good evidence showing that to be true.

        For example, look at this document about pandemic preparedness that was put together by the Canadian government in 2018. if tldr look at the bolded portions. (This quote is from section 3.5.1.5)

        Little evidence exists as to how effectively the wearing of a mask by well individuals will prevent them from becoming infected Footnote87, Footnote88 However, mask use by well individuals, in combination with other protective measures, might be beneficial in certain situations (e.g., when high-risk individuals must be in crowded settings or for well parents caring for ill children at home).

        For masks to be effective, individuals must wear them consistently and correctly; these actions can be challenging. Masks must be worn only once, never shared and always changed when soiled or wet. If not used properly, masks may lead to a greater risk of pandemic influenza transmission because of contamination, or they may make the user overconfident and hence neglectful of other personal protective measures such as hand hygiene, respiratory etiquette and self-isolation when illFootnote89 – measures that have been deemed important complementary actions to the use of masks for the reduction of disease transmission.Footnote90 Finally, given that masks cannot be used when eating and drinking and may make communication difficult, wearing them for prolonged periods may be impractical and ineffective. It is important to present the limitations of mask use to the public.Footnote91 Advice on proper disposal of used masks should accompany any recommendations for their use in the community setting.

        Providing masks to well people is unlikely to be feasible or sustainable on a population basis in a pandemic and may not be an appropriate use of public resources since little evidence exists regarding their effectiveness in reducing the spread of disease in the general population.

        Notice something here? It sounds quite similar to what Fauci said in March, doesn't it? That's because Fauci isn't an idiot and he wasn't lying.

        Now, because we know that symptomatic spread is such a problem, we've changed our approach to make universal masking a priority. That's a choice that came up in response to evidence that Fauci didn't have back in March.

        As for how imperfect protection might be no better, as Fauci said, and as that Canadian document says, there's fear (justified imo) that mask-wearing encourages riskier behavior, neglect of other preventative measures, and face touching. And again, they wanted to prevent hoarding. If you know that evidence shows that mask-wearing provides paltry (if any) protection from infection to the wearer, and if there isn't good evidence of asymptomatic spread being a serious concern, why would you tell people that mask-wearing is so serious that you should def run out and buy some, or make their own?

        • MonkeyThink [none/use name]
          ·
          4 years ago

          Fauci like Canadian researchers ignored all the evidence from Asia that masks helped prevent spread covid. Plain and simple.

          Doctors in Canada were spreading this lack of research about masks with such certainty to the point that it was obnoxious. Friends of mine in HK were mystified as to why we weren't being told to wear masks.

          A top Chinese scientists warned the west that not wearing masks was a big mistake: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/not-wearing-masks-protect-against-coronavirus-big-mistake-top-chinese-scientist-says