Media And Government Officials Told Americans Not To Wear Masks. They Were Wrong

The Federalist ^ | March 31, 2020 | Madeline Osburn

[Kaslin]

Our officials' lies have now damaged both the public's trust in any future top-down guidance, and backfired on their efforts to 'flatten the curve.'

---

As Americans slowly woke up to the seriousness of the pandemic, and their own lack of preparedness, our media and government elites discouraged the general public from stocking up on masks in an effort to preserve supplies for health-care workers on the front lines. Whether they genuinely believed masks would be useless for everyday, non-medical use, or they were bracing for shortages to come, their lies have now damaged both the public’s trust in any future top-down guidance, and backfired on their efforts to “flatten the curve.”

The U.S. surgeon general, Dr. Jerome Adams, tweeted on February 29, “STOP BUYING MASKS!”

Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
https://t.co/UxZRwxxKL9

— U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) February 29, 2020

On Fox News in early March, Adams told viewers that “you can actually increase your risk of getting a respiratory disease like coronavirus” if you wear a mask improperly.

https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020-03-05-Grabien-Dana_Perino-873379.mp4

On March 1, both Vice President Mike Pence and CNN Anchor Jake Tapper pleaded with viewers not to buy masks. “It is not necessary for Americans to go out and buy masks,” Pence said.

“It’s not going to do anything for you. It’s the people who actually have coronavirus that have the masks, need the masks,” Tapper said.

https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020-03-01-Grabien-Jake_Tapper-873375.mp4

New York City’s official coronavirus guidelines instruct New Yorkers, who are at the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, that they “do not need to wear a face mask if you are not feeling sick.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is still advising Americans that they should wear a mask only if they are sick or are caring for someone who is sick.

The World Health Organization warned just a few days ago that “masks can give you a false feeling of protection and can even be a source of infection when not used properly.”

“No, You Do Not Need Face Masks To Prevent Coronavirus—They Might Increase Your Infection Risk,” says a Forbes headline. “Seriously, Stop Buying Face Masks,” pleaded a senior writer at The Cut. “Why experts say healthy people should stop wearing masks,” reads a local Denver news report. “CDC says surgical masks won’t protect you from the coronavirus,” reads another local report in Washington state.

Government and health care officials worked hand in hand with a compliant media to get their message across, but at what cost? In early March, the Department of Health and Human Services said the country had only about 35 million of the 3.5 billion high-grade N95 respirators needed in the event of a full-blown pandemic. So what did we really save, if even after all the “no mask” messaging, the government is still having to ask companies to ramp up production anyway? Could infection rates have been reduced if the general public was not warned against wearing masks?

Scientists are beginning to weigh in with research showing that if we all wear masks, people unknowingly infected with the coronavirus would be less likely to spread it. This advice, which is seemingly obvious, makes much more sense than the confusing message that ordinary people couldn’t possibly figure out how to wear a mask properly, or that masks somehow only work when worn by health care providers.

Jeremy Howard, a research scientist at the University of San Francisco, wrote in the Washington Post that at least 34 scientific papers have found that basic masks, meaning even a cut up T-shirt, can be effective in reducing virus transmission in public.

“Studies have documented definitively that in controlled environments like airplanes, people with masks rarely infect others and rarely become infected themselves, while those without masks more easily infect others or become infected themselves,” Howard writes.

Yes, U.S. health-care workers are short on masks and they desperately need them, and of course healthy people should not be stockpiling them, especially N95 masks. But studies have also found that even surgical masks, the ones that do not have a tight fitted seal, can “reduce exposure to aerosolised infectious influenza virus.” That sounds better than no mask at all. The combination of masks and hand washing have also been found to reduce infection rates.

Lest it even need to be said, face masks are not a novel concept yet to be proven. This is not some new technology we are convincing society to get on board with. We know they work. It’s why they’re worn by health-care workers, people with compromised immune systems, and even WHO officials during COVID-19 public health briefings.

Now, our intelligentsia are sowing more confusion and distrust as they back-peddle on their previous confusing instructions to not take this obvious precaution for yourself and those around you. On Monday, President Donald Trump said he could see a recommendation, proposed by former Food and Drug Administration head Scott Gottlieb, that all Americans wear masks. “We are not going to be wearing masks forever, but it could be for a short period of time after we get back into gear. I could see something like that happening for a period of time,” he said.

In a matter of days, masks have gone from “source of infection when not used properly” to “recommended for all Americans.” So do we wear masks now, or not? Does it matter what kind? If I display symptoms of coronavirus, how long should I wait before being tested? Can I treat it at home, and for how long? It’s easy to see how the botched messaging on such a simple precaution early on will now have bigger consequences for other guidelines delivered to us down this long road.

Now that it seems obvious the surgeon general was wrong to say I don’t need a mask at the grocery store, should I trust his next instruction that seems counter-intuitive? What about what I hear from the CDC, politicians, the media, or neighborhood gossip? Is there even a difference between them all anymore?

[Fury]

Re: 12 - And it seems that people with masks are very polite. Look! He’s giving some business a monetary donation!

Like I said, a nice guy in a mask.

[Brian Griffin]

Wearing eyeglasses can close the bridge of the nose air gaps of homemade masks, making them far more effective.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Austria requires grocery store customers to wear masks.

Did they do this before they were overrun by "refugees"?

[trebb]

A doctor was just on Fox saying pretty much what I said - mask are most effective stopping sick folks from spreading droplets and science doesn't support that the virus is airborne - just in droplets.

He said there is also a problem with a false sense of security and that if they aren't airtight/get wet, they are not effective and if in n environment with the droplets, can harbor the virus and make it easier to spread it through negligence...he said that those who are immune-compromised may get some small benefit, but not as a general rule.

He stated that masks are most effective for those who are showing symptoms/coughing/sneezing to help educe the chance of spreading the virus but they shouldn't be out and about anyway.

My daughter is a RN and agrees with that as does an medical biologist I know.

If you need more - you have the whole internet at your fingertips.

[Zhang Fei]

[Re: 12 - And it seems that people with masks are very polite. Look! He’s giving some business a monetary donation!

Like I said, a nice guy in a mask.]

---

LOL

[Brian Griffin]

Masks

One per $50 purchaser, please.

[Jeff Chandler]

Doing as the author suggests would have created toilet-paper like runs on them and people like my daughter the nurse would not have them available.

Bingo. The author is either woefully ignorant or just trying to score political points.

[MayflowerMadam]

Per Tucker Carlson: “STOP LYING TO US!”

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/tucker-carlson-shortage-medical-masks-stop-lying

[Brian Griffin]

Your monthly rail pass and mask, sir.

Please go to a restroom, wipe off your luggage handles with an alcohol pad, wash your hands, get a mask fitting guide and a mask after passing through TSA security.

[vrwcregistered]

trebb,

If the efficacy of masks is very low to keep from getting sick, as opposed to high for keeping sick people making others sick (and from what I have read this is very true), then why hoard them for health care workers? They aren’t going to do much for them either, yes?

[Jane Long]

Some are speculating that this is why fed gov did/said this...to not wear masks....in order to build up a supply of masks for our frontline defense....healthcare workers/first responders, etc.

Now that supply demands will be met, we will get the green light of a requirement, from CDC/fed gov, in about a week, to begin wearing masks, in public...per Dr Matt McCarthy, Cornell doc.

[trebb]

Health care workers are on the front line and use them to keep patients from infecting them and to keep from infecting patients and each other in case they get something...they also know how to wear them for best efficacy.

Nice try at being cute while trying to sound astute, but you knew that before being "that way"...I hope.

[Balding_Eagle]

Anyone know if there are any masks with a “MAGA” logo?

I would like to wear one of those.

[jimmygrace]

In the past, when I have seen Asians wearing masks in public and not being sick, I often had a negative thought in my head... “hey, this is America. OUR air is clean!” Now I realize that they are the experts, having gone through all of those other diseases that hardly touched us. When they recover the supply, a box of N95’s will definitely be collecting dust in the back of the medicine cabinet from now on!

[sarge83]

This dithering by the “healthcare community” has really inspired a lot of confidence from the public. The Chicoms really pushed masks and I am thinking they help more than they hurt, but we don’t have enough and the “healthcare community” essentially wants to make sure they are covered even if we are not.

[Buckeye McFrog]

My daughter is an ICU nurse. If the choice comes down to me having one when I go to a grocery store or her having it when she pulls a spittle-laden ventilator tube out of a dead patient, I’ll defer to her every time.

[edwinland]

Was the doctor reporting on the results of a study he performed? Or scientific studies that he reviewed? Or what he heard from the CDC and the health care officials in government? If he didn’t say which, it’s most likely the last one.

There are multiple actual scientific studies showing masks are effective to help avoid airborne diseases, some mentioned in this article.

[edwinland]

My daughter is an ICU nurse. If the choice comes down to me having one when I go to a grocery store or her having it when she pulls a spittle-laden ventilator tube out of a dead patient, I’ll defer to her every time.

My point exactly. By and large, Americans are honest and patriotic. If they told us masks are effective and that's why nurses need them, people would have responded the same way.

But they don't trust average Americans like us to do the right thing, so they lie to us because they know better.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Our problem is not with you or me, or with anybody I know well. It is with our huge and burgeoning feral population that can’t be trusted to make sacrifices or do the right thing.

[daniel1212]

Nope - efficacy of masks is very low for well people to keep from getting sick when compared to keeping sick people from making others sick.. U.S. Surgeon General explains why CDC recommends public does not wear masks

3/31/2020, 1:33:23 PM · 42 of 100
daniel1212 to conservative98

Wrong: Fallacy #

1. One of the ways you can get the coronavirus is by touching a surface and touching your face, so wearing a mask improperly can increase your risk of getting disease.

You do not get a virus by touching anything, unless that is an entry point to your body. Thus it must be assumed people with masks are putting their hands in their mouth or up their nose.

In addition, rejecting masks since some improperly wear them would be like rejecting guns since some also misuse them.

2. It can also give you a false sense of security.

Likewise seat belts and helmets, so to be consistent with rejecting something that is overall beneficial due to what can or sometimes do happen negatively, then all such that do so should be banned.

3. The data does not show it helps.

Or that it does not, and common sense tells you it would help prevent transmission as well as reception, or at least the amount of it. See

How the AMOUNT of the coronavirus you get infected with could decide whether you suffer mild or severe symptoms