Rand Paul And Fauci

Politics & Elections
#108

What you’ve quoted is…incomplete.

“During a virtual event with the Washington Post in July, Fauci said that, in addition to wanting to preserve face masks for those most in need, health officials truly did not realize the degree to which infected people without symptoms were spreading the virus.”

“I mean, back then, the critical issue was to save the masks for the people who really needed them because it was felt that there was a shortage of masks,” he said. “Also, we didn’t realize at all the extent of asymptomatic spread and that a person who could be without symptoms at all could inadvertently and innocently spread it to someone who was uninfected.”

“Fauci added: “But what happened is that as the weeks and months came by, two things became clear: one, that there wasn’t a shortage of masks. We had plenty of masks and covering that you could put on that, plain cloth covering. That took care of that problem. Secondly, we fully realized that there were a lot of people who were asymptomatic who were spreading infection.”

Despite the “FAUCI LIED” meme (which seemingly will not die, no matter how contradicted by reality), the most you can accuse Fauci (and other health experts) of is stressing the limitations of mask-wearing based on knowledge at the time (not foreseeing the extent to which masks would limit transmission of Covid-19 by asymptomatic people), largely due to fears that a run on surgical masks would deprive health care workers on the front lines of protection.

On the other hand, the degree to which Rand Paul has spewed misinformation about Covid-19 makes it difficult not to use the word “lie”.

Good science (and health recommendations stemming from it) evolve.

The only way that cranks evolve is to grab onto new forms of crankery and deception.

#109

So the other nations that started wearing masks immediately to fight against a respiratory illness were psychic? I’m not sure why the song and dance over this considering I already cited Fauci admitting why he waited to do this.

#110

I still don’t see what the supposed lie was. He said that masks were for the infected, to prevent them from infecting others, and that masks weren’t very good at protecting the wearer. That’s… true. In your world, do people lie by saying things that are true?

#111

Those are countries who were hit hard by SARS and Swine Flu, in ways the US wasn’t. They already had a culture of wearing masks in public. They were doing it years before Covid. That’s not psychic powers, that’s a coincidence.

You selectively quoted him. You’re ignoring what you don’t want to hear. Jackmannii cited where Fauci admitted that they were operating under false assumptions. And he didn’t lie about wanting to preserve masks. It was well-known that masks were supposed to be saved for the very vulnerable and front line workers. It’s not the conspiracy you’re trying to pretend it is. Look at this article:

The date on that article was February 7, 2020. Fauci’s message about not buying masks was on February 5. They thought back then that masks weren’t important for everyone to wear, that it was better to save them for those who needed it more.

They were wrong. Because, as I said, they didn’t have the info yet. They didn’t know it was spreading asymptomatically. They didn’t realize that 20-year-old Joe might shake 19-year-old Jill’s hand, with neither having any symptoms at all, yet Jill had Covid and infected Joe, and then Joe goes home to his 60-year-old uncle Bill who catches it and dies. With that foreknowledge they might have made a concerted effort to produce masks (though Trump would probably have dragged his feet as he did on most everything else related to fighting the pandemic, except eventually vaccine development). They might have advised people to make their own from the very start if there was a shortage, as they advised later once they realized the importance. But this whole conspiracy BS is just that. You’re distorting history and trying to demonize people who you disagree with. It doesn’t work.

Fauci - Rand Paul Thread
#112

What nations were those, and what were their immediate reactions to the Covid epidemic?

#113

then the proper message to get out would be to encourage the making of masks to make up for shortages. Something that happened when the message to wear them changed.

The idea that Fauci based his decision on asymptomatic vs symptomatic data is just sad in the face of what other countries did.

Fauci - Rand Paul Thread
#114

See, this whole “discussion” thing doesn’t work when you only quote a bit of what I say and then pretend I didn’t say anything else.

Again, the whole “ignore everything else I said” thing doesn’t work Magiver.

#115

That’s pretty much how he quotes Fauci, so he is consistent.

#116

What other countries are you talking about, and what did they do about Covid?

#117

Ok I’m not gonna even try to convince Magiver of anything, that’s a fool’s errand. He has a script and he’s sticking to it.

And others have already pointed out the obvious with much more detail and eloquence that I can. So I’ll just say this. Anyone with two eyes, two brain cells and a basic understanding of how science works that has been paying attention for the last year and a half can see exactly what happened. Early on Fauci stated that mask wearing was unnecessary for healthy people for essentially two reasons, first was that effective masks were in short supply and needed to be reserved for health care workers and the infected. Second was that it wasn’t completely clear how it spread and how contagious it was. Remember the early speculation of whether covid could cling to surfaces for long periods of time? Yeah turned out not to be a thing. We also learned about asymptomatic spread which is what truly led to widespread mask usage, as no one could truly know if they were infected or not. Reliable testing wouldn’t be a thing for quite awhile still.

Both of these reasons were covered in both Fauci’s early statements and his later statements when the CDC’s guidance changed as knowledge and info improved. This is how these things are supposed to work. As you gain more information you change policy and guidance to reflect reality. To characterize this as a “lie” is to strip the word of all meaning.

#118

Yeah, but it takes some of the heat off of the Liar Trump.

#119

The lie was that masks didn’t work. you’re trying to change the metrics of the conversation.

#120

I won’t track it down again but I read at least one full and unmolested set of transcripts of a Q&A from Fauci in early 2020 and, in at least that one instance, he was strictly and with zero nuance opposed to general mask wearing for the reason that it would do nothing. There was no reference to the idea of saving the masks for the front lines nor any other considerations. Just, “Nope, it’s a waste of time and money.”

Let’s assume, for reasons of exploration, that he did this fully in the intent to lie. His goal is to save the masks for the front lines but he knowingly and intentionally lied, on that day.

Now let’s also imagine a case where a gun-wielding maniac walks into a school and tells a teacher to go round up all the students and bring them to the cafeteria. The teacher promises to do this but, instead, goes around the school notifying all the students that she encounters of the situation and convinces them to run away from the school. She has purposefully and knowingly lied to the gun-wielding maniac.

O darn.

At what level should you disapprove of lies for the sake of saving lives, for zero personal gain?

I’m sure that there is some level of excess, where your lies cause more harm and more deaths than you save. But taking a straightforward, “He lied. Ergo, he is evil. Ergo, nothing else matters.” Is probably not a reasonable position to take.

Let’s take for example the argument that, if he had simply explained that the masks were limited and - on the balance - more strongly needed elsewhere, then people would have waited and let the doctors have all the masks until the recommendations changed.

For that argument to work you have to demonstrate that you live in a world where, for example, most people can and do read past the first sentence in an email before denouncing the whole three sentences as a book and TLDR; that most people can and do follow the medical recommendations that they receive from their doctors and the medical community; that most people are selfless and patient; etc.

Whether it was the right judgement call or not is possibly something that we could tease out from the math. But that Fauci lied - assuming that he did - doesn’t tell us that he’s evil or not to be trusted. It tells us that he’s a cynic.

My experience of the pandemic is that cynicism is reasonably well founded in reality.

#121

There were other high-placed people who didn’t recommend masks early on. Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, now on Biden’s Covid Advisory Board, was saying well into July of 2020 that, while it seemed intuitive that masks helped prevent the spread of Covid, there was no actual evidence that showed as such - what studies there were were confounded by too many other elements to prove anything one way or another. And places like New Zealand had no use of masks early on, and had no spread. Once the evidence and the knowledge about how the disease was spreading advanced, he and others went along with the evidence.

That’s how it’s supposed to work.

#122

That statement is so reductionist as to be completely meaningless.

#123

I can’t understand the way you guys think.

Clearly, the solution to Covid in, say, New York City was to para drop Special Forces medics on mini motorcycles (led by the man that should have been Surgeon General, Dr. Ben Ghazi) and use firefighting planes to dump millions of gallons of hand sanitizer on the most infected parts of the city using landmark churches as targeting points.

It’s the only rational solution we had at the time.

#124

Yeah, for instance once it became clear that there was going to be a shortage of toilet paper and other paper and cleaning products, people immediately adjusted their purchasing decisions to only pick up what they needed for a reasonable time frame, ensuring plenty of supply for everyone.

#125

… or when the pipeline got ransomware’d affecting most of the Eastern United States, even though it did not impact the supply going to Florida, Florida still ran out of gas.

#126

Now, in spite of massive evidence that vaccines and masks work, a significant portion of the population still refuses both. My opinion is that Fauci didn’t intentional lie. What would be the motive? On the other hand, leaders of the Republican party and right wing media lied and are still lying about masks and vaccines ostensibly because “Freedom!” but actually because they want to remain in power and make more money. Remember “I downplayed it and I’m still downplaying it.”? Magiver’s arguments are the equivalent of “But the emails!”

#127