[necrotic_comp]

> The US surgeon general and Fauci told people to stop buying masks. Then they reversed themselves, and defended their position at the time.

Making a claim and then reversing it based on new data is the correct thing to do. This isn't an issue at all and shouldn't be considered a violation of trust.

[throwmeaway_pls]

Saying they don’t work or aren’t necessary was a lie. I’m honestly not trying to stir anything up here, but a lie is a lie.

Here’s an interview where Fauci discusses point-blank why the American public was mislead, and it had nothing to do with data: https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

We need to hold our leaders to a higher standard. All of them. Red, blue, green, whatever.

[necrotic_comp]

What he said on 60 minutes in March 2020, and I'm transcribing here:

"The masks are important for someone who is infected to prevent them from infecting someone else. Now when you see people and look at the films in China and South Korea and everyone is wearing a mask - right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks.

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 better, and it might even block a droplet, but it is not providing the perfect protection people think it is. And often, there are unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

When you think mask, you should think of healthcare providers needing them and people who are ill. When you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of the people wearing masks, that's fine, I'm not against it, if you want to do it, that's fine."

"But it can lead to a shortage of masks?"

"Exactly. It can lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it."

This was in March, before things started really blowing up. That seems pretty upfront to me as to why they are making the recommendation, and it's incorrect in hindsight.

I don't see it as a lie at all.

[mistermann]

> I don't see it as a lie at all.

Lying is a combination of truth + intent to speak untruthfully.

The video you are replying to at least plausibly demonstrates intent to deceive (for arguably good reason imho, but deceit nonetheless)

The video you responded with offers a different perspective, but it does not nullify the prior video. What is True is true from all perspectives, otherwise it is not true.

> "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask."

From a Truth perspective, this seems untrue.

> "When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel better, and it might even block a droplet, but it is not providing the perfect protection people think it is."

"perfect protection" is an interesting choice of words. Is he suggesting that if masks are not perfect, they should not be worn? Of course not. But then, why did he say that?

> "And often, there are unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face."

And therefore, we shouldn't wear masks?

> "Exactly. It can lead to a shortage of masks for the people who really need it."

Which is the reason he gave in the first video for the deceit. I'm not disputing that this was a decent enough strategy under the circumstances (a mask shortage), but it backfired.

> I don't see it as a lie at all.

They've done a decent job covering this up in most people's minds, but not with conspiracy theorists or highly detail oriented people, and I think it's a shame that people seem frequently unwilling to even acknowledge that they have at least somewhat of a valid point. What is strictly true should perhaps not be ignored. If you want people to "not do your own thinking, trust the experts, without exception, then you would be well advised to be worthy of trust. Or, don't, and reap the rewards Mother Nature bestows upon you.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

- Richard Feynman

[necrotic_comp]

Your response is extremely frustrating. At the time they gave this advice, it hadn't yet hit NYC, and the scope and speed of the future outbreak in the states was unknown ; in late February/early March it's more than reasonable to think that, like swine flu, the states' response would contain the outbreak to hospitals and therefore masks a) weren't necessary for the day-to-day, b) could give a false sense of protection to the people wearing them, and c) were best suited to be used by professionals.

Of course, within two weeks, NYC was shut down and people were wearing makeshift masks and the advice was updated.

To say that Dr. Fauci, of all people, was lying to the public instead of giving the best advice available at the time is an affront to his decades-long career of public service.

[mistermann]

> Your response is extremely frustrating.

I fully realize the manner in which I speak is frustrating, and it frustrates me that people find it frustrating (and also that it will get you throttled on HN so you have to wait when replying to posts).

I should also note that the "tone" of this message will be more of the same, because I believe speaking frankly in pedantically objective terms is useful, even if it may offend. If I was able to do it without offending I would, but that is a skill I seem to lack.

> At the time they gave this advice, it hadn't yet hit NYC, and the scope and speed of the future outbreak in the states was unknown.

Agreed. But was it unknown at the time that the stage was set for a serious global pandemic?

> in late February/early March it's more than reasonable to think that, like swine flu, the states' response would contain the outbreak to hospitals

It is reasonable to speculate that this is one possible outcome, but I do not believe it is reasonable to speculate that this is the only possible outcome, or choose to ~assume it will be the outcome that will manifest in reality and set strategy on accordingly. I believe when considering and managing risk, worst case scenarios should always be front and centre in people's minds.

> and therefore

I read this is: "and therefore it logically follows that", and therefore disagree.

> a) weren't necessary for the day-to-day

I prefer: may not.

> b) could give a false sense of protection to the people wearing them

Is this harmful? To what degree, and in what way?

Was no other messaging possible that could accommodate this detail?

> c) were best suited to be used by professionals

They may be "best" suited for professionals, but this does not mean that value can only be derived from professionals wearing them, which seems to be what was communicated.

> Of course, within two weeks, NYC was shut down and people were wearing makeshift masks and the advice was updated.

Agreed. However, a reader might implicitly infer from this statement that health officials were acting ~perfectly based on available information, when the truth very much seems to be (based on the one Fauci interview video posted here) that at least part of the motivation for the messaging to not wear masks was known to be untruthful, but was done to preserve mask supply for health care personnel. I do not object to this strategy in general, but I do object to the unwillingness to consider the value in coming clean about it after the fact - it seems perfectly plausible to me that if officials were more truthful in this way, they they'd get less blowback from conspiracy theorists and detail oriented people.

> To say that Dr. Fauci, of all people, was lying to the public instead of giving the best advice available at the time is an affront to his decades-long career of public service.

Mother Nature (and sometimes the real-world behavior of a subset of human beings) is not persuaded by emotion-based [1] rhetoric like this - she behaves the way she does, and we can choose to acknowledge that and respond accordingly [2], or we can choose to ignore objective details and live in a narrative-based fantasy land.

I believe thinking about things in this manner (meta-conversation, meta-cognition) is useful [3]. Is this not the way we think when we are doing engineering and systems analysis? Yes, managing the affairs of humans is different, but it is also similar. What is optimal is unknown, it must be discovered, like anything else humanity has achieved.

[1] affront - an action or remark that causes outrage or offense.

[2] This does not mean that we must tell citizens the truth all the time, but only that it should be acknowledged than when you deceive, you run the risk of being found and suffering consequences.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practise to deceive!"

"If you tell the truth you don't have anything to remember."

I suspect there may be an evolutionary reason why such aphorisms persist across generations.

[3] not "the" "answer", but useful. Perhaps what I say here is 100% incorrect, but to know with some certainty would require actually trying it.

[necrotic_comp]

> I fully realize the manner in which I speak is frustrating, and it frustrates me that people find it frustrating (and also that it will get you throttled on HN so you have to wait when replying to posts).

It wasn't so much the manner in which you're speaking, it's the conclusion being drawn.

> Agreed. But was it unknown at the time that the stage was set for a serious global pandemic?

It was, absolutely. But historically, we had managed these scenarios well ; we had a perfect storm of incompetence in the administration that set us up for failure.

It's not unreasonable to think that career civil servants would think that we would be able to leverage similar tools to those we used in the past, and it was only after it really broke in the states that we realized that this was qualitatively different than what we had previously seen.

> It is reasonable to speculate that this is one possible outcome, but I do not believe it is reasonable to speculate that this is the only possible outcome

That's correct. It was one of the possible outcomes, and based on their analysis, they deemed it to be the most likely. Considering this is a once-in-a-hundred years pandemic, it's not unreasonable they made this decision.

> I read this is: "and therefore it logically follows that", and therefore disagree.

That's correct. What I was attempting to say was "Given they believed the decision was correct, if the decision was correct, it logically follows ... "

> I do not object to this strategy in general, but I do object to the unwillingness to consider the value in coming clean about it after the fact

He said in his followup that was posted above that he didn't want the N95s to be hoarded, and this was why he gave the advice not to go out and buy masks. What it appears to me is that there is a conflation in his mind between "masks" and surgical masks/N95s.

In the 60 minutes interview, he said that he didn't have a problem with people wearing masks, but that wearing them would do more harm than good because they were uncomfortable and people fidget with them ; based on his response to the BusinessInsider reporter, I believe what he meant to say was, essentially:

"N95 masks are uncomfortable and made for use by professionals. They will grant you some protection, but because they are uncomfortable, you will likely use them in the non-prescribed way, and therefore expose yourself to risk while thinking you are safe. Please don't go out and buy them because they need to be used by doctors that need them.

"If you want to wear a mask like they do in China or Japan, that's fine, but at this point, it's likely not going to do much more than stop a cough or a sneeze and they're not needed."

I think that's what he was trying to communicate. I don't think it's wrong, but he had a failure in the language he was using, and that miscommunication is making people think he is a liar.

[throwmeaway_pls]

> There's no reason to be walking around with a mask.

I see that statement as a lie. Fauci addressed it in the TheStreet interview and explained why he lied. I don’t see how somebody would see that as not-a-lie, but if you’d like to, go ahead.

[yanks215]

> Making a claim and then reversing it based on new data is the correct thing to do.

Agree with this statement, however it does not apply here. There was no new data. They always knew that masks worked, but they needed them for first responders. Confirmation of this from Fauci interview: https://www.businessinsider.com/fauci-mask-advice-was-becaus...

The responsible, accountable thing to do would have been to say to Americans, "these masks do work, but we need them for first responders, please donate yours!"

[necrotic_comp]

See my comment above. Fauci said on national TV that the first responders needed the masks, and that people buying them up could cause a shortage for the people that needed them.

Somehow the messaging got muddied over the last few months.

[yanks215]

I read and comprehend both of your comments. I think we are describing two different points: you are speaking about data on PPE shortages, and I have been speaking about data on PPE efficacy.

In the article I linked to, the surgeon general said masks were not effective. This is false. They are effective (along with non-N95 masks).

The data on shortages did not need to be remedied with a mischaracterization of PPE's effectiveness. It could have been communicated as I previously suggested, stating, "we messed up and need donations from the world." This would have increased institutional trust (being honest about the situation), and perhaps supported more uniform mask usage in the long-run.

The original mischaracterization and subsequent defense of this communication choice remains a cause of institutional mistrust. And even if you don't agree, you must be able to sympathize with the logic behind this conclusion for others. In fact, two other replies to your first comment similarly agreed with me.

[necrotic_comp]

I maintain that your logic is faulty, mainly because of the timing of when these things were said.

We had a window in late February/early March where we didn't know how nasty this thing was going to get in the states, and the responsible people in charge (namely, Dr. Fauci and not the administration writ large) made a claim based on previous experience ; as soon as it became apparent that it was getting out of control, there were calls for PPE donations, and the Federal Government refused to act, going so far as to steal PPE purchased by states.

There are many reasons for having institutional distrust, but to claim that the singular person in the administration who fought the President on his strategy (and was subsequently muzzled) was actively misleading the public is beyond frustrating.

[yanks215]

I understand your frustration. I also want institutions to be trusted. American government fails without it.

Even if our logic is faulty, the reality is that people have come to these conclusions in large minority status in this poll: https://www.npr.org/2020/09/19/914233038/poll-climate-become....

The number of distrust has doubled, from 14% in March to 29% in September. So it's possible there is merit and momentum to my reasoning, that government should be transparent and avoid mischaracterization (or the appearance of it) and irresponsibility.

[vlucas]

That's not what happened. They intentionally told people to stop buying masks when they KNEW they would help, because they were worried about running out of them for medical professionals.

https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7