Sen. Rand Paul and others are slamming former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci after he defended the efficacy of masks on an individual basis over the weekend.
Their criticism comes as a resurgence of COVID-19 is renewing the debate over masks.
“Fauci admits that masks don’t work for the public at large but still absurdly claims masks work on an individual basis. More subterfuge,” Mr. Paul, Kentucky Republican, posted Sunday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The Washington Times reached out for comment to Georgetown University, where Dr. Fauci now serves as a professor at the School of Medicine and its McCourt School of Public Policy, but did not hear back.
Dr. Fauci appeared on CNN with Michael Smerconish on Saturday, and was asked about a study published last month led by Oxford epidemiologist Tom Jefferson. It concluded the masks people wore during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether surgical, cloth or N95, made no difference in terms of protecting them from the virus.
Additionally, it said the nonrandomized studies that initially convinced policymakers to impose mask mandates were flawed observational studies.
Dr. Fauci insisted that other mask studies focus on the individual level.
“When you’re talking about the effect on the epidemic or the pandemic as a whole, the data are less strong,” he said, “But when you talk about as an individual basis of someone protecting themselves, or protecting themselves from spreading it to others, there’s no doubt that there are many studies that show that there is an advantage.”
In March 2020, at the initial onset of the pandemic, Dr. Fauci said, “wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better,” but “it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think it is.”
His statement then was consistent with what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was saying and the World Health Organization’s guidance.
Mask guidance which eventually became mandates throughout the pandemic switched its stances on their efficacy as the Biden administration began to require COVID-19 vaccine shots for federal workers.
State and local governments followed suit, forcing the private sector into both mandates.
States began to lift their mask mandates at the start of 2022 as the number of COVID-19 cases plummeted. By March of last year, airlines lifted their mask mandates and more recently, hospitals had lifted their mask mandates this past spring.
However, a new COVID-19 variant has some officials in some states, schools and facilities reimposing mask mandates and social distancing protocols.
New York City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan recently cautioned that the Ba.2.86 variant is “likely to evade immunity that has developed from vaccination or prior infection.”
Atlanta-based Morris Brown College, a historically Black university, implemented a two-week mask mandate and re-imposed social distancing when “reports of positive cases among students” came to light.
Kaiser Permanente, a California-based healthcare facility, brought back its mask mandate to its facilities in Santa Rosa “amid an uptick in patients testing positive.”
And in New York, several hospitals also reinstated mask mandates at Auburn Community Hospital, United Health Services and University Hospital in Syracuse.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated Dr. Fauci’s previous position.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.
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