Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is offering an answer to one question many people have had since the start of the coronavirus pandemic: Why were masks not a requirement at the onset of the pandemic?
During an interview with The Street, Fauci admitted that the only reason masks were not initially required is because of the personal protective equipment (PPE) shortage.
In an effort to prioritize healthcare professionals, the White House Coronavirus Task Force attempted to offset the shortage by advising the public not to wear masks.
“Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned, the public health community and many people were saying this, … that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply,” he said.
Fauci continued, “We wanted to make sure that the people, namely the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected.”
See Fauci’s remarks below:
While Fauci reiterated that masks are not guaranteed to prevent a person from contracting or passing the coronavirus, it is still an effective precautionary measure.
“Masks are not 100 percent protective. However, they certainly are better than not wearing a mask. Both to prevent you, if you happen to be a person who maybe feels well, but has an asymptomatic infection that you don’t even know about, to prevent you from infecting someone else,” Fauci said.
Fauci also reiterated how masks can prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“But also, it can protect you a certain degree, not a hundred percent, in protecting you from getting infected from someone who, either is breathing, or coughing, or sneezing, or singing or whatever it is in which the droplets or the aerosols go out. So masks work,” Fauci added.
The top infectious disease expert also stressed, “The important thing is actually physical separation.”
Fauci’s latest remarks follow multiple conflicting advisory statements about masks. While many northern states have made it a legal requirement to wear masks in public, some southern states have deemed it to be voluntary.
Some Americans have even protested against mask requirements, dismissing the importance of the protective measure. As of Wednesday morning, there are more than 2.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States. The death toll now stands at 119,145.