He was shocked to learn of the asymptomatic transmission in mid-late February. This is a key person in determining the US strategy. Not rewriting history, it’s a email that was sent at the time.
As someone else pointed out, that preliminary report from Jan 30 Fauci referred to was debunked within a few days as that specific person actually was showing symptoms.
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/report-of-asympto...
Current thinking is that there's statistical evidence for pre-symptomatic transmission about 2-3 days before symptoms appear:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S138665322...
The evidence for effectiveness of other kinds of masks in the prevention of virus transmission is weak, at best.
It's easy to look back in time and say "Someone knew the right answer."
It's very hard to stand in the present and say "Of the 20 people who each have a different answer they believe is right, I am going to select the really right one."
Often, the optimal decision is to hedge and delay until information becomes clearer.
IT's deadly primarily in populations of people(usually elderly) who can afford the health care needed to keep chronic health issues managed through medication.
the failure of covid-19 to materialize in the slums of Nairobi or poor rural districts of Thailand caused a lot of complacency among western planners who presumed that if it did not hit there it would not affect them.
Here's an article from January[1]:
> "There's no doubt after reading this paper that asymptomatic transmission is occurring," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "This study lays the question to rest."
I've noticed a lot of excuses for poor decisions, as well as rewriting of history that's only a couple of months old. I doubt we're going to see much accountability for the way the pandemic was mishandled.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/31/health/coronavirus-asymptomat...