Also, context matters. OMS avoided recommending masks at the start of the pandemic since no study showed the efficacy of it, and there was no mass production of masks yet. So recommending it for general population would only generate shortage of masks for those who needed (frontline medics and nurses treating the cases). So this is why they're so against it.
But that’s not what they said. Fauci said “healthy people do not need to wear masks.” So he either lied then or is lying now. The reason for the lie is irrelevant. If healthy people should wear masks, the lack of production capability doesn’t change the fact.
If masks work and Fauci knew they worked, then his statement that healthy people don’t need masks was scientific fraud.
His exact words: “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.”
That statement was either patently false, or it was true and his current statements are patently false.
Did he lie in order to protect mask supplies? Did some new groundbreaking study come out during the next few months? Of course not. So why would a rational person trust anything coming from Fauci given that we don’t know if it’s the truth, or just some manipulative statement based on whatever the political need happens to be at the time? To be even more cynical, ask oneself why certain older mask-related research papers have been censored?
So how many scientific studies about mask efficacy were completed to change the scientific consensus during those two months when we had a mask shortage and were being told that masks only protect doctors?
I don’t consider that a reasonable stance. New things happen all of the time, all people need to learn on the job. Scientific consensus at the beginning of the COVID pandemic was limited, transmission vectors largely unknown. There must be room for unknowns even for top advisors.
I admit it is not a reasonable stand, it comes from a deep level of fustration with how slowly the politicians are rolling things out and with how confident they sound when they are not doing anything.
what fauci said was true (given tolerance for the natural ambiguity inherent in speech). in most cases, masks have been, and continue to be, primarily a palliative and signaling device, not a mitigation. for healthcare workers, it's actually an augmentative mitigation used with other imperfect mitigations in controlled circumstances to get the best possible outcomes from their use. masks are poorer mitigations in most general circumstances in comparison to the easier alternative that is (context-specific) distancing.
at various points, he's buckled to the prevailing political winds to keep his job, but that particular statement was a moment of lucidity and frankness. it threatened the dominant mediopolitical narrative, so he eventually backed off.
> That statement was either patently false, or it was true and his current statements are patently false.
You’re actually missing the correct option which is that scientific consensus has shifted on this issue. Science is a process for the truth and conclusions can change with more evidence.
People keep saying this, but it doesn't make it true. The consensus of public health officials changed for sure, but I haven't seen any evidence that the science changed at all
The fact that he said "people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face" is exactly what I said about context: we still used to think that using alcohol and disinfecting surfaces are more effective than avoiding direct contact (at least for the general public). We now know that this isn't the truth, disinfecting surfaces are barely recommended nowadays since we know that the virus is airbone so masks and social distancing are the recommendation.
