[Jensson]

He said that masks wouldn't be helpful march 08 2020. A month layer New York had a thousand detected covid deaths a day, so people really should have started to wear masks march 08 2020 since deaths lags infections by about a month. If they were giving proper advice instead of telling people that covid wasn't a big deal at the time then maybe that disaster could have been averted from the start? At the time the dangers of covid spread was well documented based on how quickly it got into Italy, but at the time it was the democrat party line to downplay the disease to avoid racism against the Chinese so that was the line Fauci took.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask...

> "There's no reason to be walking around with a mask," infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60 Minutes.

> While masks may block some droplets, Fauci said, they do not provide the level of protection people think they do. Wearing a mask may also have unintended consequences: People who wear masks tend to touch their face more often to adjust them, which can spread germs from their hands.

[Sohcahtoa82]

What I find ironic about the people that criticize Fauci for lying about the need for masks are often somehow still anti-mask.

Like, they acknowledge Fauci lying about not needing masks, which would imply that they should be wearing masks, but will now refuse to wear a mask because they think Fauci is lying about needing masks.

[sfblah]

I'm sort of tired of being downvoted for saying this, but the data on masks other than well-fitted N95s is pretty shotty. Lots of P-hacking, lots of motivated reasoning, and the results pre-2020 differ in notable ways from that post-2020.

The situation gets even murkier when you talk about mask _mandates_ instead of individual decision making. The argument that mask mandates are helpful is tough to support in the face of the differences in the delta-variant curve, for example, in different counties in California.

Just to say it: even daring to compare the results in contra costa county and san diego county, california (which have different mask requirements) got me shadow-banned on reddit. The reasoning here is mostly political, not scientific/rational. No one cares what the science says.

[Sohcahtoa82]

A lot of the problem I think comes from messaging and deliberate bad-faith interpretations of messages.

Claims that "Masks slow the spread of COVID" gets interpreted as "Masks stop the spread of COVID", and so when we have mask mandates and yet COVID still spreads, people use that as evidence that masks are worthless.

It's interesting that people can draw opposite conclusions from the same scenario. COVID has continued to spread despite mask mandates. Some claim that means the masks are worthless. Others (including me) would claim that, despite how bad it is, the spread would be even worse without them.

> individual decision making

In most cases, I agree that people should be able to make their own health choices. You wanna eat McDonald's for every meal and walk less than 50 steps a day? Go for it. Hell, snort a few lines of cocaine for dessert if you want to.

But when it comes to a pandemic, it's different. Sure, the vaccines are 95+% effective, and masks might be X% effective, and social distancing is Y% effective, and so on...but when >30% of the population has zero interest in doing any of that, then you can take every protective measure you can (Besides just staying in your house) and still get the disease from some asshole at the grocery store that doesn't care if they spread it.

Also, consider last year's toilet paper shortage, and the short gas shortage a few months ago. Individuals will often act irrationally in their own interests rather than what's good for everyone as a whole.

To think of it another way, when at a pizza party, you will have some people who take 3 slices of pizza because there might not be enough for everyone so they want to make sure they get their share. Others might only take a single slice because there might not be enough for everyone so they want to make sure as many people get some.

Individual decision making only makes sense if people aren't selfish.

[sfblah]

I agree that the data on masks can be interpreted both ways. This suggests to me the effect is small and probably second- or third-order (i.e. masks encourage more distancing, and that's actually what matters).

It isn't just that COVID continues to spread despite mask mandates. It's that the curves look nearly identical in areas with and without mask mandates. And, to show their effectiveness, epidemiologists have resorted to pretty serious P-value hacking.

Separately, I find it hard to get worried for my personal safety because of the 30 percent of people refusing to vaccinate themselves. It's just not that hard to avoid the sorts of places where such people are likely to be. And, being vaccinated and healthy makes it less of an issue for me than, say, the risk of a car accident. Sure, I could pass it on to someone else if I get it, but with reasonable precautions I don't think that's likely at all.

[patpending]

> He said that masks wouldn't be helpful march 08 2020. A month layer New York had a thousand detected covid deaths a day, so people really should have started to wear masks march 08 2020 since deaths lags infections by about a month.

I don't see how that is necessarily a lie. It could have been the best public health recommendation he could make at the time based on the available information. Research into how best to use masks is ongoing, so I would not expect today's masking recommendations to be the same as tomorrow's.

[naasking]

No, watch the interview. He actually says that wearing masks could actually be worse than not wearing them. In a later interview, he admits the suggestions against wearing masks was a lie because they were afraid of PPE shortages.

It's also not the only lie he's told and admitted to. See his claims about herd immunity, where the numbers kept going up, and when he was questioned on this, he outright said he just gave out numbers that he thought the public would accept at the time.

[patpending]

I don't know which interview you're talking about, but in any event you don't know what his motivation was for saying what he said when he said it. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps he changed his mind, perhaps he was rationalizing on the fly, or perhaps he lied.

It's clear that what he and other scientists said about masks early in the pandemic certainly changed over time. I think science is like that. People who like simple, certain, unchanging answers can get them from religion or ideology. People who don't mind complexity, nuance, and change are more comfortable with science.

Assuming Fauci was lying because what he said then isn't what he is saying now just isn't logical.

[naasking]

> but in any event you don't know what his motivation was for saying what he said when he said it

He literally explained his reasons for lying.

Fauci admits to lying about masks and explains why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLXttHlUgK8

Fauci admits to moving the goalposts on vaccination rates and explains it's because of his "gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks": https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...

> It's clear that what he and other scientists said about masks early in the pandemic certainly changed over time.

This isn't about that, this is about literal deception from a public health figure about public health.

[rsj_hn]

The point of these arguments is to show that public health pronouncements can be political in nature and our chief authorities are not afraid to lie in order to achieve what they believe is a greater good.

It is not the specific content of the lie that is the issue, but the lack of integrity on display. It is used as a retort to "official X declared Y", and is meant to undermine the integrity of official pronouncements in general. There are many who bristled at these initial claims by pointing out (correctly) that promoting "noble lies" is terrible for public health officials and doing so would come back to bite them. For some reason, the medical profession seems to accept noble lies as being justified when the rest of society does not. This goes back to the old saw of doctors lying to their patients about their own health. It's a blemish on the profession, and one that needs to be erased and apologized for ASAP, and IMO, Fauci belongs to that old school and doesn't really get it -- and probably never will.

Also, as a protip to your finding of the fact that masks were being lied about but they themselves don't want to wear masks as being "ironic": the literal meaning of "irony" refers to saying something but meaning the opposite. For instance "Sure, I trust you", when the speaker clearly doesn't. There is also situational irony, which would be when the opposite of what is intended happens. E.g. trying to kill someone by giving them a poison that ends up curing them. So in this case, the irony would be saying a "noble lie" with the intention of saving lives but actually causing more lives to be lost -- that would be the true irony here.