Fauci Confirms Public-Health Experts Downplayed Efficacy of Masks to Ensure They Would Be Available to Health-care Workers

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical advisor to the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, confirmed that public-health experts discouraged the public from wearing face masks towards the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak because they were concerned there would not be enough available for health-care workers.

During the early weeks of the pandemic, public-health experts “were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” Fauci said in an interview with TheStreet.

“We wanted to make sure that the people, namely the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected,” Fauci continued. Continue reading.