Fauci’s Fraudulent Fearmongering

Dear Yserbius,

1. Why is that my crowd? It is a recurrent theme of this thread, and even more on the other one, that you ascribe opinions and statements on behalf of other posters.

2. It is unclear to me what a government right is, or if such a thing exists. What is clear is that masks can be mandated. That just happened. And is still happening. I thought you would clarify why masks were mandated, and how such a mandate could have been maintained better.

3. It seems like you are reflecting the thinking that caused many public health measures to fail. Whatever is implemented, has to be done with a prudent eye toward a uniform application of standards. For example, masks were not pushed immediately in the U.S. so that the hospitals would have enough masks for their employees. There has to be a clear goal for public health. Or else it just wanders in circles. Helping enough not to give up on what is in place. But not solving anything so that the same ineffective policies stay in place.

4. Almost nobody pays serious attention to Dr. Fauci. Except for some sound bites. Some social and traditional media influencers got involved to normalize the main points of his message. Try to find quotes of him where the person quoting him was not oblivious to the context.

5. I was trying to let you in on the truth. Dr. Fauci was not going to say that we could discard our masks, until there was data that demonstrated the vaccine working in real time. The chance of the data showing a need to continue to wear masks after the vaccines take effect, was around zero. But still, if never predicts data. It is what made him a star over the last thirty years. And there is on reason for him to make assumptions now.

6. It appears to me that you are your own public health expert. You advocating for a mask policy without purpose or guidelines. If I am mistake and you do not consider yourself an expert on public health, why are you involved in how others wear or do not wear their mask?

Dear Yserbius,

It’s nice that we are down to only three points!

1. My one support was that one question was actually a question. It did have a simple answer, which I subsequently posted. I never endorsed not wearing masks. I am a strong proponent of questioning and defining the benefit.

2. The Government gets to decide if it’s laws are just or not. Your statements on this part of the topic is so basic that you are not saying anything worth pointing out. Except that you keep trying to reframe it as a right. I disagree with that wholeheartedly.

3. So let the experts convince them. I think everyone can agree that the messaging in the U.S. on public health was terrible. It still is, and has been for decades. Maybe always. But we thought that at the cmost important times, the system would get it’s act together for the good of the country. Turns out the system is so broken, it could not even pull itself together for it’s own good.

Now to what I think is the center of this never ending discussion. The function of public health – really the entire public system of government during a pandemic is to defend the critical infrastructure from crumbling, while using what is functioning to overcome the onslaught. The fact is without restraining the citizenry, an epidemic will surely erode and very possibly destroy a government.

This is something that had to be said. And was paid clearly in the strongest democracies. New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, Canada, and Paraguay. Once that is out of the way, there are only two questions for public health officials to worry about. 1. What is working? 2. What is coming next? In the U.S. in general and certain communities in particular, the messaging was unclear and they tip-toed around that very necessary point. That left inconsistent compliance. Which made it near impossible to tell what is working. Somehow, masks became the flashpoint for this failure. Hence, people seriously believe that it encroached on their personal freedoms.

It is known that masks help prevent infection. It was generally assumed in the West that masks do not prevent the flu. This is being reevaluated now. As is almost all the science on viruses. It was assumed all over the East that masks help prevent infection coronavirus and flu. There are different ways to mandate wearing masks. Now that the federal and state governments tried [Aof mostly failed.] their hand, it is up to the local businesses and clergy to follow through. In most of the U.S., mask mandates were only effective at the local level.

Once some communities partly rejected some health guidelines without any clear reasoning, It is impossible to get back to where things should be. So what are you trying to get at? Putting some masks on some people is not significant. In sum, I think you miss how much personal autonomy there is for the individual when it comes to following public health.

Personal question, how much increased hand washing have you been doing?

Dear Yserbius,

Congratulations! I think we have arrived at some agreements. While the message has gotten across to you, that is because you put your faith in it. Others have less faith because they did not start with – or quickly lost the trust that you have. All though the messaging does not make an overall difference to you, it does to others. As is evident from the same health officials calling their own efforts unsuccessful. The fact is mask mandates were not evenly used across any large part of the country.

Now to be fair. The other posters in these discussions have stated that they mask at least in some instances. Since the messaging has resulted with relatively inefficient mask mandates, it is hard to say that they are supposed to be masking more. We were left with unclear guidelines. Is a mask needed in a public playground? How about an outdoor waiting area? When eating out, at what point do we remove our masks? What are the guidelines for asthmatics? What is more important, clean air flow or masks? I could go on for another hundred lines. So once again to be fair. Who is to say that everyone else is wearing their mask too little? Maybe you and I are overdoing it.

And to clear up the side issues. Government rights was your point. I do not care if what the government did was wrong or not. (Spoiler alert! I think every move was well within the legal limits of goverment power. The Courts struck down some measures because public health officials did not make a clear case. Which comes down to messaging again.) The question is if their overall methods worked. And the answer is not so much. By personal autonomy, I meant that individual mask wearers have the choice of what type, how large, and a lot of other ‘circumstantial deviances’ that the government did not define for them.

Dear Made Aliyah,

Even if you would be right about everyone of those arguments, it will not help you one bit in the overall debate. Emergency responses are just different than everyday legislation. All the points you bring in, do nothing to address that. And yes, you can expect a mask mandate for the next flu epidemic.