From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, health experts have been unable to unify around a cohesive message about face masks. A virtuoso of contradiction, Dr. Anthony Fauci — then-director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a prominent face of the White House COVID-19 response team — publicly flip-flopped on the usefulness and need for masks multiple times.
In January 2020, he said “Americans shouldn’t be wearing masks because they don’t work.” This stance was reiterated in March 2020, when he stated1 that “people should not be walking around with masks” because “it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.”At the time, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services agreed, as did Dr. Amesh Adalja, a Johns Hopkins Public Health expert,2and Surgeon General Jerome Adams, who took to Twitter urging Americans to stop buying masks, saying they are “NOT effective,”3 and that if worn or handled improperly, face masks might actually increase your risk of infection.4
Logically, only symptomatic individuals and health care workers were urged to wear them. However, by June 2020, universal mask mandates had become the norm and we were told we had to wear them because there may be “asymptomatic super-spreaders” among us — another lie.
By July 2020, Fauci claimed his initial dismissal of face masks had been in error and that he’d downplayed their importance simply to ensure there would be a sufficient supply for health care workers, who need them most.5
Toward the end of November 2020, the asymptomatic spread narrative was effectively destroyed by the publication of a Chinese study8 involving nearly 9.9 million individuals. It revealed not a single case of COVID-19 could be traced to an asymptomatic individual who had tested positive. Still, the propaganda machine churned on, ignoring the evidence at hand
Around December 2020, recommendations for double-masking emerged,9 and this trend gained momentum through extensive media coverage as we moved into the first weeks of 2021.10 That two masks would be more effective than one is just “common sense,” Fauci told CNBC in January 2021.11
The fact is, Fauci knew masks cannot block viruses and that claiming otherwise was unscientific. He told the truth in a private email to a colleague back in February 2020, in which he stated that masks are “not really effective in keeping out viral particles, which are small enough to pass through material.”17Masking people up reinforced the idea that we were living in dangerous times though. It fed people’s fears, and that’s the effect they were after.
As we head into fall, Fauci is now making the media rounds again, saying he hopes people will comply if mask recommendations return. Why media still believe that people will listen to Fauci is a mystery of its own. In a September 2, 2023, CNN interview, Fauci said:18
“I would hope that if we get to the point that the volume of cases is such and organizations like the CDC recommends — CDC does not mandate anything — recommends that people wear masks, I would hope that people abide by that recommendation …”
Funny he should say that. Recall the CDC not only mandated but ORDERED the wearing of masks on public transportation in January 2021. However, as noted on the CDC’s website,19 the order became unenforceable due to a court order, issued in mid-April 2022.
Remember that when the CDC renews its mask recommendations. They can’t mandate or order you to do anything. Also remember that Fauci just confirmed the CDC has no authority to do anything but make recommendations.
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