People knew in January and were ringing the bell. UW made their own test based on the viral genome finally released on or around the 12th of January. The Daigou shoppers were in the US stripping shelves, and I linked to a chart of Amazon sales in the first two months of the year.

What's slightly off is your rewriting of this history to make it sound like nobody new anything. Many knew, and took steps. I don't fault Fauci for what he said in March, because it was consistent with longstanding policy guidance. But his claim in June that he lied nobly for the greater good is b.s. and it doesn't stand up to any scrutiny.

Polypropylene (surgical) masks don't stop aerosol transfer of the virus. This was known for ages. They're for fungi, pollens ,and droplets, not microdroplets. Cloth masks are even less effective and quickly become moldy face-fomites.

If you want to defend mandating these for everyone, even small children, do it directly. But don't excuse Fauci on the noble-lie pretext as if his March "no masks" advice saved polyprop or cloth for HCWs who cannot use those masks on the job. The polyprop masks come in boxes with black letter language disclaiming their ability to prevent infection. The noble-lie excuse makes no sense.

(Edit: As per 'BrendanEich' - point below, I had misread his earlier statement with respect to his view that this was mostly about Dr. Fauci - he didn't indicate that it was specifically about Dr. Fauci directly. That said - statements are all directed at Dr. Fauci when these policies are fairly consistent around the West and even in the US, these policies decisions are made by the CDC, Fauci, others.)

It was Dr. Fauci, the CDC, the WHO and the entire Western World i.e. Canada, UK, Germany, France, Europe etc. (not so much Asia).

"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,"

Dr. Mike Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO, March 30

The same policy in Canada, UK, France, Germany.

Here is UK's policy evolution over time [1] [2].

So why are you focused on Fauci, who is doing the same thing (in coordination) with everyone else?

2)"Dr. Fauci said no masks" --> This is a misrepresentation.

Here is the WHO policy in late March:

"Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO: "We prioritize the use of masks for those who need it most, which would be frontline health care workers. In the community, we do not recommend the use of wearing masks unless you yourself are sick and as a measure to prevent onward spread from you if you are ill" [3]

Here is a public statement by Dr. Fauci, via CBC/60 Minutes, early March:

"In March, Dr. Fauci told 60 Minutes that masks should largely be reserved for healthcare providers. In April, the recommendations were broadened to include simple masks for the general public." [4]

Dr Fauci + CDC, Late March:

"The idea of getting a much more broad, community-wide use of masks outside of the health care setting is under very active discussion at the task force. The CDC group is looking at that very carefully, Fauci told CNN. The thing that has inhibited that a bit is to make sure that we don’t take away the supply of masks from the health care workers who need them," he continued. “But once we get in a situation where we have enough masks, I believe there will be some very serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks.” [5]

The policy was always, and repeatedly: "Don't wear masks, because our healthcare workers need them" - and they do, HCW use both N95 and Surgical Masks.

There's tons of evidence available as to the material shortages of masks and other PPE well into summer.

3) "Polypropylene masks don't stop aerosol transfer of the virus." --> this is a misrepresentation.

Yes, it's public information Surgical Masks do not filter the virus directly - do you think that millions have been duped, that the 'World Powers' have tricked us, if only we could read the label?

Here is the Mayo Clinics statement:

"A cloth mask is intended to trap respiratory droplets that are released when the wearer talks, coughs or sneezes. It also acts as a barrier to protect the wearer from inhaling droplets released by others." [6]

Surgical Masks won't directly filter COVID, however, there is evidence to support the notion that COVID is spread often in water vapour and droplets, and that Surgical/Cloth masks can at least help to minimize the risk via these vectors.

See here for a litany of studies which provide some evidence as to the effictiveness of surgical masks in HCW environments [7]

3) "But don't excuse Fauci on the noble-lie pretext as if his March "no masks" advice saved polyprop or cloth for HCWs who cannot use those masks on the job. "

The objective was to prevent a run on N95s as much as Surgical Masks - and everything else.

It wasn't a 'lie' it was 'guidance' or what we call 'Public Communications' and it's what we do in Emergency Situations to try to get 350 Million people acting consistently within a short period of time.

4) "Don't re-write history" - the timeline is in full public display.

This is what happened, it happened in public, for everyone to see, and it was orchestrated by the WHO, CDC/Faci, and his equivalents in the rest of the modern world.

It's hard to tell how much of an effect the March 'save the masks for hospitals' policy had, however, it's very rational policy, even in hindsight.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-53397617

[2] http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/blog/post/mask-or-no-mask-a-look...

[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...

[4] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-facemask...

[5] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/31/fauci-mask-recommen...

[6] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/i...

[7] https://ncceh.ca/documents/guide/masking-during-covid-19-pan...

Also, kindly cut the "misrepresentation" nonsense. I wrote polyprop masks don't stop aerosol transfer and that's true as stated, and relevant. In returning to mask efficacy vs. droplets (which in no way refuted the problem of microdroplets smoking around polyprop mask margins) you also left out how masks can nebulize droplets, which all else equal makes things worse.

Fauci had no reason to lie in March to save polyprop or cloth masks as HCWs do not use either in Covid-isolated floors. As I wrote way above, by the time he said this, polyprop were in good supply — we bought many.

However many fancy link footnotes you add, you can't overcome the problem that his March no-mask advice was based on sound long-term policy, no new science arose to revise it, and mandates arriving in our county and state that same month allowed cloth(!) in addition to polyprop.

Let's talk about cloth masks. Anyone can make a cloth mask. If you contend Fauci was saving cloth for HCWs (obvious nonsense), please cite the hospital that allowed cloth masks, and show the evidence of nationwide cloth shortage.

If you think Fauci was lying about cloth, but that cloth masks (as allowed to satisfy the mandates) save lives, then how dare Fauci cost lives! Right?

It was known in January.

On January 24, 2020, the Senate Committees on Health and Foreign Relations held a closed meeting with only Senators present to brief them about the COVID-19 outbreak and how it would affect the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_congressional_insider_tra...

"In my state close to 50% of deaths were attributed to nursing homes. So either N95 wasn't available or healthcare professionals were careless. Either way it led to a lot of deaths."

So the problem with this statement is the implied assumption that 'masks are the thing'.

They are not 'the thing' just 'one of the things'.

LTC homes are very sensitive, we didn't have policies and procedures for protecting everyone. They are not Hospitals with highly paid professionals. They don't always have the best PPE. They know nothing about transmission, procedures etc. and generally have nobody to support them whereas Hospitals are full of smart, connected people.

My hunch is that many of them were totally caught off guard, had no idea as to N95 or Surgical, they don't have any special supply chain power, they didn't have testing.

They were in a chaos state and realized too late they had major outbreaks in their homes and then reacted - in some cases, too late.

https://paltc.org/sites/default/files/AMDA-AHCA-NCAL%20State...

Any fool by that point in March knew that the virus was highly transmissible. Nursing homes and LTCs did not have extra staff or isolation wards, sanitarium-level protection — but they could have. Funds wasted on the Mercy ship and Javits Center, which were barely used, should have been spent on isolation.

Civilian mask mandates have nothing to do with this, but even with N95s, nosocomial spread is a problem in hospitals, never mind nursing homes. NY intake was mixing known-infected with unknown-status/no-symptoms patients. This too was not a case of being "caught off guard". It was negligent or worse, and it relates to vent overuse.

I reject "virus denier" as bait. Look at Newsom and the many other hypocrites caught in flagrante maskless. They were not denying the virus exists in their public words, but their nominally private deeds said something about their sense of relative risks that doesn't fit your cult-like "denier" language.

What are your neighbors denying, exactly?

Of course they knew 'there was a transmissable virus' - but what does that mean?

"Nursing homes and LTCs did not have extra staff or isolation wards, sanitarium-level protection"

How?

With what money?

Who is going to mandate it?

Who is going to 'hire a bunch of new, trained staff immediately'?

This would bankrupt Private LTCs and the Public one's had no access to funds.

How does the mid-level manager of an LTC have the knowledge or ability to come up with emergency protocols?

These hotels were not prepared, they responded with PPE, by isolating workers to floors and residents, they increased testing, closed of visitors - and possibly, as you say did something about the air ventilation.

.. and masks were one part of the policy ...

... and now it seems they have it mostly under control.

With the money blown on Javits, Mercy Ship, Seattle field hospital that went utterly unused, etc.

Lots of money was spent last spring: https://patch.com/new-york/harrison/new-york-coronavirus-sta... is one link.

I've been through this line of argument before. First it was "no one knew" (just a hunch). When I produce evidence in the form of that letter from PALTC et al., the argument shifts to "nothing could have been done" — at the same time that tens of millions were misspent on underused or unused facilities.

Public spending went way up, including (Newsom's $1B rip off) on masks. Why are you so keen to feign helplessness and avoid accountability? Trump family taxpayer rip-offs get and deserve condemnation, but it's ok when Cuomo or Newsom does it? A pox on all of them.