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Comment by ltbarcly3 | Hacker News Reader

As this article points out, there was a lot of correct information being posted that was flagged as misinformation because the officially correct information was incorrect, even though much of it was extremely obviously true (such as n95 masks reducing the chance of infection). In fact it was simultaneously a crisis that n95 masks were in short supply for medical workers and disputed that n95 masks could be useful to protect people from covid infection.

Before you have a knee-jerk reaction to this, look it up, what I am saying is easy to verify for yourself to be accurate.

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This was IMO one of the great blunders which seriously damaged trust in governments. Would we have had as many firmly anti-mask people if the story had always been "Masks probably work, but please don't don't buy them because healthcare workers need them"? Probably not.

Morally, I don't think it's acceptable to lie "for the greater good"; people who would otherwise have used masks they already owned might have died due to that lie. Strategically, I think undermining trust in medical institutions is the most dangerous thing you can do during a crisis like the covid pandemic.

This one is super unfortunate, I understand that they were trying to protect the supply of n95 masks for medical personnel but they did it in a completely backwards way that destroyed the trust of a massive amount of the population (and it didn't help that WHO went out of their way to ignore evidence cause it was presented by Taiwan and was inconvenient for China).

I remember knowing super quickly that the answers being given were clearly political with a wink wink being given, but also if you weren't looking at the actual sources and were just watching fox/cnn/msnbc you weren't getting that metadata so can understand people being so frustrated.

I remember that, it was a funny Catch-22- stop buying masks, the doctors need them- but masks don't protect you from covid. In retrospect, though, I think the narrative that they weren't effective only lasted about as long as the shortage, so probably was intended to relieve that situation.

Please point out anywhere that "officially correct information" stated that n95 masks did not reduce the chance of infection.

Very early on, I recall statements discouraging mask use because of concerns the public would incorrectly wear them and increase their risk. At that time there was very limited information about how COVID-19 spread, with the NY Subway steam cleaning their cars on a nightly basis, and people washing their mail in an attempt to prevent infection.

Here's what Factcheck.org has to say on the subject:

https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/scicheck-misinformation-ab...

I can find tons of examples very easily. The last link is a video of Fauci saying masks won't help and aren't worth it. At the time, if you said people should wear masks, you were 'spreading misinformation'.

https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_e58c20c6-8...

"While Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, Fauci later said that he was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough protective equipment for health care workers. This was also early in the pandemic before public health experts fully knew how contagious the disease was and how it spread."

https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-said-masks-not-really-effecti...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/10/20/is-trum...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JddXPeeNGoo&t=10s

Absolutely NONE of your sources quotes anyone claiming that N95 masks don't protect against disease.

In several cases, (early on) the statement was made that "drugstore" (surgical) masks won't protect the wearer, and only those with symptoms were recommended to wear them. That changed when research showed asymptomatic people were spreading COVID-19, then it was suggested that EVERYONE wear a (cloth or surgical) mask, not to protect themselves, but to protect the public from you. Other than that, everything said was and is still true.

Nothing about N95 masks specifically... Probably because the public just couldn't buy them at the time.

A claim that 'masks' don't protect generally does imply N95 masks don't protect specifically.

Did you not see the last video? Why are you trying to amend history to suit your political views here? Fauci repeatedly discouraged mask use because he said people would infect themselves by touching their faces to adjust the mask. He said this over and over, and that applies to N95 as much as any other mask.

Frankly due to the amount of intentional suppression of these videos it's hard to find them. You would think there would be plenty of documentation of all the news around covid, especially the early days, but lots of tv appearances have fallen down the memory hole.

It doesn't not matter, yes it was hard to buy an N95 mask at the time, but many, many people have N100 or P100 masks for work. As a hobby I spray paint sometimes, so I have multiple P100 masks, which far exceed anything necessary to prevent infection. The truth is people should have been encouraged to wear masks, and educated on which masks are effective and which were not. Fauci was wrong about masks early on, and as usual for him he lied about it later (hilariously that he lied is his official story, he lied to protect mask supplies, so he would rather you think he lied previously rather than was incompetent) to try to avoid looking like he made a mistake.

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