[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.

[mistermann]

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

I enthusiastically encourage you to point out any specific flaws whatsoever in my logic or conclusion, using strict epistemology and trinary (true/false/unknown) rather than binary (true/false) thinking.

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

> It was, absolutely.

The assertion: it [was] [absolutely] [unknown] that [the stage was set] for a [serious global pandemic] "in [late February/early March]".

Let's investigate:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic

- The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020 and a pandemic on 11 March 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic#History

- A report in The Lancet on 24 January indicated human transmission, strongly recommended personal protective equipment for health workers, and said testing for the virus was essential due to its "pandemic potential".

- On 30 January, the WHO declared the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pande...

- The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020.

There is much more I could add to this to make my case more persuasively, but I'm lazy. To me, this seems to cast doubt on the certainty of the general notion that risk averse public health officials (aka: The Experts) did not have the necessary information required to form the conclusion that "the stage was set" for a global pandemic. If the people whose job is managing pandemics are unable to recognize that the potential exists for a global pandemic at this point, I believe an in-depth discussion should be had at some point about whether there are shortcomings in the system, or the current personnel are suited for the job.

> we had a perfect storm of incompetence in the administration that set us up for failure

Perhaps, but that is a different discussion. I am happy to have it, but let's try to avoid changing the topic.

> 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.

When estimating and managing risk, the "most likely" scenario does not seem like the only thing that should be taken into consideration when determining what actions to take. If the CDC disagrees, then I believe we should be reviewing their decision making policies.

> "Given they believed the decision was correct, if the decision was correct, it logically follows ... "

Agreed. What matters is whether the decision was correct. I suspect we have no disagreement here.

>> 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.

What he initially said is the point of contention: was deceit plausibly involved in the initial claims to not buy masks?

Rhetorical muddying of the water by resorting to other he said/she said narratives agitates conspiracy theorists, as well as detail oriented people who are seeking the truth. Perhaps it doesn't bother you, but you are not the problem - conspiracy theorists are (so it is claimed).

> 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...

What you personally believe is not the point of contention. The point of contention is what was True, and what he actually said.

https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

At 1:30, Fauci says: "Well the reason for that is that we, the public health community, were concerned that it was at a time that personal protective equipment including the N95 masks and surgical masks were in very short supply, and we wanted to make sure that the health care workers who were brave enough to put themselves in harms way to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected, we did not want them to be without the equipment that they needed, so there was not enthusiasm about going out and buying a mask - we were afraid that would deter away from the people who really needed it."

You can choose to personally interpret that however you would like. However, a literal interpretation seems most appropriate, and fairly unambiguous to me - roughly, they told the public that there's no need to wear a mask because they knew there was a shortage and they wanted to preserve them for health care workers. Again, I'm not saying this was a poor decision, I'm saying that this is where distrust comes from, and it doesn't require "conspiracy thinking" to form that conclusion.

From the meta-perspective, look how complicated the analysis of such a relatively simple scenario is when you roll up you sleeves and get into details. Now, compare that to the discourse in this thread (the entire thread, not just our discussion): broad "truthy" generalizations stated as fact, history revision, mind reading, future predicting, downvotes with an inability (I speculate) to rebut, etc. Coming at this from a system analyst mindset (what we're dealing with here, human society, is a system), it seems rather odd that a community with a heavy concentration of systems-analysis-skilled people seem to be surprised that we have sub-optimal performance, and polarization of opinion & anger among stakeholders.

If we accepted this level of skill in the workplace during systems analysis and management, I doubt anyone here would be surprised if similar outcomes transpired. So then, why is it that most people seem so surprised when a system that is several orders of magnitude more complicated than the ones we deal with at our workplaces is managed in a non-disciplined manner? I have a feeling that the answer to this question may be a lot more important than it may seem at first glance. Perhaps it is getting close to "the" answer.

EDIT: As a fun experiment, and keeping in mind this systems analysis mindset: go through this entire thread an perform a strict epistemic & logical analysis of every single comment, mentally noting whether each one is (True/False) flawless. ("Flawless" is the standard I am using, because that is the standard one uses in proper systems analysis, which is distinct from systems implementation, where flaws are routinely accepted). Even better, do this as a background process when reading all discussions on HN for a while, particularly those of a culture-war flavor.

[necrotic_comp]

He explicitly says that buying up masks would cause a shortage for healthcare workers in the interview for 60 minutes in early March.

On the topic of citizens buying up mask:"It can lead to a shortage of masks?" His response: "Exactly. It can lead to a shortage of masks for people who really need it."

He wasn't hiding it, or lying about it.

--------

[mistermann]

> He wasn't hiding it, or lying about it.

This is speculation - you do not have access to the information required to make this statement with certainty.

From my prior message:

>> I enthusiastically encourage you to point out any specific flaws whatsoever in my logic or conclusion, using strict epistemology and trinary (true/false/unknown) rather than binary (true/false) thinking.

Under strict epistemology, one should not state speculation as if it is fact because it may actually be an incorrect statement. From a trinary logic perspective, it is unknown whether he is lying.

If you feel the urge to say we can never know when someone is lying, that is often true, but an important difference in this case is that there is evidence that he could have been lying. One goal of exercises like this is to seek as much truth and clarity as possible (even if certainty cannot be reached). Another goal is to practice control over one's mischievous mind, which is harder than you'd think.

> He explicitly says that buying up masks would cause a shortage for healthcare workers in the interview for 60 minutes in early March.

Correct, he did say that on the 60 minutes interview on March 8, 2020.

He also said:

"...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."

The assertion: "People should not be walking around with masks. There's no reason to be walking around with a mask." seems to be quite counter-intuitive advice considering the topic (a global pandemic) and what Fauci knew at that point in time (my prior post, and some additional detail below).

Katherine Ross from TheStreet.com interviewed Fauci on Jun 12, 2020 (note: this is a later date than the 60 minutes interview) and asked about this earlier confusion:

https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

In that video Katherine asks: "Why were we told later in the spring to wear them, when initially we were told not to?"

Fauci answers: "Well the reason for that is that we, the public health community, were concerned that it was at a time that personal protective equipment including the N95 masks and surgical masks were in very short supply, and we wanted to make sure that the health care workers who were brave enough to put themselves in harms way to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected, we did not want them to be without the equipment that they needed, so there was not enthusiasm about going out and buying a mask - we were afraid that would deter away from the people who really needed it."

A decently fair simplification of this:

Q: "Why were we initially told not to wear masks?"

A: "We wanted to make sure that the health care workers who were brave enough to put themselves in harms way to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected. We did not recommend that people go out and buy masks because we were afraid that [restrict supply to] people who really needed it."

If the reason they didn't recommend people to wear masks was because they didn't think there was value in wearing a mask (as stated in the earlier 60 minutes video), then why did he say that the reason was to prevent the public from going out and buying out the supply, disrupting it for health care workers?

So that is one motivation for distrust, that the two stories do not add up.

There is also the timeline issues in my prior post, which raises a valid question of professional competence, does it not?

To that information, I will add:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2235342-covid-19-why-wo... (26 February 2020 , updated 11 March 2020 )

> The World Health Organization confirmed a covid-19 pandemic on 11 March. ((This was added on Mar 11 when a pandemic was formally declared.))

> Prepare for a pandemic, says the World Health Organization, as the global spread of covid-19 soars by the hour. It’s not a matter of if, but when, say US health officials. Yet so far the WHO refuses to actually call covid-19 a pandemic. Why? The answer may lie with what kicks into gear when we deploy the P-word. Countries have pandemic plans that are launched when one is declared, but these plans may not be appropriate for combating covid-19 – and the WHO doesn’t want countries to lurch in the wrong direction.

> The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the covid-19 virus already meets two of its three criteria for a pandemic: it spreads between people, and it kills. The third is that it has to spread worldwide. The virus is now in 38 countries – and counting – on nearly all continents, and those are just the ones we know about. How much more worldwide does it need to be?

COVID had already met 2/3 criteria for pandemic status. The first cases in North America were reported in the United States in January 2020. At the time of writing this article (Feb 26), it was constant headline news, and significant numbers of people were asking why the WHO had not yet officially declared it a pandemic (I recall this period very well, there were conspiracies theories making the rounds about why the WHO wouldn't make the call).

3 days before WHO pandemic declaration, Fauci says on 60 minutes: "People should not be walking around with masks. There's no reason to be walking around with a mask."

Subsequently, when questioned about why people were told to not wear masks, he stated that was because they (the health community) didn't want people to go out and buy masks so as to not exhaust the supply for healthcare workers.

Given the evidence, do you believe that it is illogical [1] to have serious concerns with either the medical community's professional judgment, or their truthfulness? (Note that we are dealing only with publicly made statements as opposed to what actually occurred within physical reality which is unknown to us - so we are already being gracious in taking him at his word.)

HOWEVER, I should also add:

a) I don't think the above is any kind of a slam dunk smoking gun against Fauci in any way, even if he was outright lying. But perhaps it can help to see how a different and valid(?) perspective can be taken on the matter even without resorting to conspiracy "thinking".

b) You're a very patient person, so thanks for that.

[1] When I say "illogical", that is to distinguish between your personal feeling on whether this situation is problematic, versus whether someone who does consider it a problem is guilty of a failure in logic, keeping in mind that the topic of conversation is a pandemic.