[daveevad]

I'm not sure that is correct. In a subsequently FOIA'd email, Fauci told a colleague on February 5, 2020.

> Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.

[LordDragonfang]

That's a well known fact about how masks work in general, yes. They have a large effect on transmission from the wearer and a comparatively small effect in preventing transmission to the wearer.

However, when you have a limited supply of masks, it's impossible to give them out to every potentially-infected person, so saving them for high-risk people (like healthcare professionals, who also have the highest risk of becoming infected themselves) is still rational.

[Izkata]

Only with droplet spread. Once we're in the realm of aerosol spread, as with SARS-CoV-2, you need N95 filters or better to stop them. The virus just goes around or through the cloth masks everyone was wearing.