Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an email correspondence last year that face masks aren’t needed unless an individual was sick and that the coronavirus was able to pass through personal face masks easily.
“Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading [an] infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection,” Fauci wrote to who is believed to be Obama-era Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell in February 2020.
Fauci, also the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, added: “The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out [the] virus, which is small enough to pass through the material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in [keeping] out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you.”
The country’s leading infectious disease expert ultimately did not recommend she wear a face mask.
“I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a [very] low-risk location. Your instincts are correct, money is best spent on medical countermeasures such as diagnostics and vaccines.”
“Safe travels,” he added, at a time when government officials were urging states to limit travel.
The email was shared online after BuzzFeed News published more than 3,200 pages of Fauci’s emails written from January 2020 to June 2020, and the Washington Post published 866 pages of his emails written between March 2020 and April 2020.
The correspondence, which was released to the public on Tuesday, sparked backlash on social media.
“It was always about politics. Not the science,” Republican Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted.
It was always about politics. Not the science. https://t.co/OVAr1tPxux
— Rep. Jim Jordan (@Jim_Jordan) June 2, 2021
“It’s not new that Fauci flip-flopped on masks – the striking part is where he admits #SARSCoV2 is so small that it passes thru mask material,” wrote lawyer Philip Holloway.
It’s not new that #Fauci flip-flopped on #masks -the striking part is where he admits #SARSCoV2 is so small that it passes thru mask material. This has been the key point made by PPP experts all along. Notably in these #FauciEmails he also knew early on about aerosol transmission
— Philip Holloway 😊 (@PhilHollowayEsq) June 2, 2021
Others echoed Jordan and Holloway on Twitter.
This will be my response anytime someone asks me to wear a mask: Dr. Fauci says the virus particles are too small to be stopped by a mask, therefore masks don’t work. Fauci’s words, in an email. What science has changed since then?
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) June 2, 2021
Dr. Fauci told us to not mask, then mask, then wear 2 masks.
Why would anyone still listen to this man?
— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) May 27, 2021
Stop wearing your masks people pic.twitter.com/QkKqFKMIOS
— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) June 2, 2021
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The emails come after Fauci said in January 2020 that the coronavirus “isn’t something the American public needs to worry about.”
“It’s a very, very low risk to the United States,” he added. “It isn’t something the American public needs to worry about or be frightened about.”
The next month, Fauci publicly told people, “In the United States, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to wear a mask.”
“If you look at the masks that you buy in a drugstore, the leakage around that doesn’t really do much to protect you,” he said at the time.
Fauci also discouraged people from worrying about the coronavirus, saying its danger was “just minuscule.”
He ultimately flipped his support and urged people to wear masks.
