March 2020: Dr. Anthony Fauci talks with Dr Jon LaPook about Covid-19

Fauci was never dishonest. That was Trump trying to shift the blame to him. Watch the original clip: [VIDEO] He literally said that the reason he is advising against masks was because he was worried about shortages.

Have you forgotten that we couldn't buy masks or other medical equipment for months because of China, and everyone, including WHO, Fauci, Obama, etc. were advising people against using masks due to shortage? - January 14, WHO: Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳( [LINK] ) - January 31, Trump suspends travel from China: Proclamation on Suspension of Entry as Immigrants and Nonimmigrants of Persons who Pose a Risk of Transmitting 2019 Novel Coronavirus( [LINK] ). A move condemned by many, including WHO and Biden. - February 1, Biden: We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.( [LINK] ) - Feburary 2, Health Commissioner of New York City: As we gear up to celebrate the #LunarNewYear in NYC, I want to assure New Yorkers that there is no reason for anyone to change their holiday plans, avoid the subway, or certain parts of the city because of #coronavirus.( [LINK] ) - Feburary 24, Pelosi: You should come to Chinatown. Precautions have been taken by our city, we know that there's concern about tourism, traveling all throughout the world, but we think it's very safe to be in Chinatown and hope that others will come.( [LINK] )

I think the context is given at the end of the video. I think Fauci was trying to avoid a mask shortage that would have affected healthcare workers who absolutely need the masks. The problem is that he downplayed the masks too much, and now his words are being used against him. EDIT: The video was in another comment. [VIDEO]

> I think Fauci fell a beat behind the narrative marching band in March when he said no to masks for the general population, and so had to make up a dumb story in June about how he nobly lied to save PPE for frontline workers in March. Consider this interview, done early March, in which Fauci argues against masks: [VIDEO] . You don't even have to read between the lines because he explains his reasoning bluntly: "Exactly, that's the point. It could lead to a shortage of masks for people [(healthcare workers)] who really need it." He never at any point thought masks were ineffective. When he did say so in March as you see from this interview, he said it because he was concerned about shortages for medical staff. There doesn't exist evidence with which one can credibly accuse him of committing this sort of revisionism. Bringing up Kramer betrays a lack of familiarity with Fauci's history. Kramer and Fauci eventually came to be very close friends, and Kramer is on record saying Fauci was LGBT community's best friend. Mullis lost his marbles later in his life, sounding fringe views on HIV, astrology and lots of other stuff. His contribution of PCR technique is undeniably one of the great discoveries in chemistry, but he's not an authority on much else.

> Fauci did not argue against civilian masking solely based on shortages. No, he did. You linked the same clip I linked, except minus the 20 seconds where he reveals his reasoning. Please refer to slightly longer version: [VIDEO] I agree it wasn't a great thing to play down masks to the extent he did, but as someone else pointed out, explaining the nuance of the situation to 350 million people is a tough task. Remember the toilet paper situation? Imagine if he'd sold masks as the solution, people would try to get their hands on one at all costs, they would not have faith in home-made cloth masks, they'd want what doctors are wearing because those are the ones that really work (is what they'd be saying)! Stories like these would be commonplace: [LINK] I frankly don't know how else he could've handled this if at the time the information available to them indicated a possible shortage of masks. What would you have done in his place at that time in that situation? And coming back to my original point: doesn't Fauci deserve a pass on this one, considering how sticky the situation was? Give me a few minutes to find a link on Kramer talking about Fauci

>Personally, I think experts should err on the side of humility in public communications — and that means telling the truth, even when it’s complex. That's what Fauci did. The problem is that nobody bothered to actually listen. In the video where he was allegedly lying, he said that he thinks that masks are ineffective at preventing you from receiving covid and that they should be saved for healthcare workers and people who are sick. [VIDEO]

>Last year they consciously lied that masks were ineffective to preserve them for health workers. I'm tired of hearing this meme. A lie implies they were hiding their intentions, but leadership was transparent about saving masks for healthcare workers from the start. It's just that nobody bothered to listen, and now people want someone to blame for not listening. Here is a video from Fauci from early March: [VIDEO] In it Fauci says that masks are primarily ineffective at preventing you from contracting disease and effective at preventing its spread. At the time, it made sense to save the masks for healthcare workers and sick people.

Here[1] is Dr. Fauci talking about how masks are mostly ineffective. Only at the end of the video, he agrees with the host that if everyone wears masks, it can lead to shortages for healthcare workers. 1: [VIDEO]