“Doctor Anthony Fauci recognized in this video that the masks that they imposed on us are absolutely useless, and that they deceived him (sic.) ”. Accompanied by these affirmations, a video of Anthony Fauci is being disseminated, Former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) of the United States, supposedly assuring that “the masks that they imposed on us are absolutely useless” and that “they deceived him.”
But in fact, Fauci’s statements in the original video, taken from the documentary American Masters: Dr. Anthony Fauciof March 2023, defend the opposite: the expert considers that, Had the current scientific evidence been available, I would have recommended the use of masks before.
Fauci’s verbatim statements are as follows: “There was data indicating that it was not necessary to wear a mask, since there is no evidence that they protect you outside of the hospital, there are very few infections that are transmitted asymptomatically. There is a shortage of masks. The data was misleading, but it was there. And they were misleading. If I were an infallible person, he would have said, ‘Put a mask on anyway, even if we don’t know those things.’ Maybe he should have. But I didn’t act on that instinct. Yes, I was wrong”. That is, he affirms the opposite of what is being disseminated: that, if he could return At the beginning of the pandemic, it would have recommended the use of the mask.
In addition, the video that is being broadcast is not the original, but is cut: it omits the fragment in which Fauci clarifies that the moment in which he did not recommend masks for the general population was between the months of January and February of the year 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, not of the year 2023.
Fauci mentions that in “January and February 2020 there was data indicating that it was not necessary to wear a mask”, but not in 2023
The former medical adviser explains in the video that in 2020, from Had the same scientific evidence been available as at present, I would have recommended using the masks before: “When a question arises, you have to resort to the specific data available at that time. Although there weren’t many, there were things we knew and others we didn’t” (from 1:46)”. At no point in the video does Fauci state that masks are “absolutely useless”as the disinforming content points out.
In the documentary, the doctor assures that at the beginning of 2020 it was not known “what it meant to have one or two people infected in a society that already does not like to wear masks.” “How about saying: ‘Now we have two cases. Everyone wear a mask?’”adds Fauci about his opinion at the beginning of COVID-19 (starting at 2:08).
Fauci stated the following on February 29, 2020, on NBC’s Today news television show: “Right now, at this moment, there is no need to change anything that is being done on a day-to-day basis. Right now, the risk is still low, but this could change.”
On the date of publication of the documentary episode (March 2023), Fauci acknowledges that the data “misled him”, misleading him: “The data was misleading, but it was there. And they cheated on me. If I were an infallible person, he would have said, ‘Put a mask on anyway, even if we don’t know those things.’ Maybe he should have. But I didn’t act on that instinct. Yes, I was wrong” (as of 1.14).
In summary, Anthony Fauci does not affirm that “the masks that they imposed on us are absolutely useless” and that “they deceived him”as it is spreading. ensures that If I could go back to the beginning of the pandemic, I would have recommended the use of masks from the beginning of 2020.