‘It’s So Obvious!’ Dr. Fauci Rejects Critics of February 2020 Email Recommending Against Masks

Dr. Anthony Fauci defended himself from critics who have taken aim at an email of his from February 2020 that advised against wearing a mask for the prevention of the coronavirus. The moment came during a wide-ranging Thursday morning interview on CNN’s New Day, while the Fox News morning show dedicated multiple segments deriding Fauci over the emails.

Roughly 10,000 of Fauci’s emails were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act order made by Buzzfeed News and later obtained The Washinton Post, and have been seized on by conservative media outlets eager to find evidence of malfeasance, inconsistencies, or hypocrisy.

One such example is an email from February 4, 2020, in which Fauci advised Sylvia Burwell, former HHS Secretary in the Obama Administration about wearing a mask, and he did NOT recommend doing so.

This has been used as evidence of “flip-flopping” by outlets like the New York Post who speciously reported on this email with the headline “Fauci emails show his flip-flopping on wearing masks to fight COVID,” despite the fact that the email came before the spread of the contagion was even deemed a pandemic.

Fauci, who has publicly explained that he didn’t advise wearing masks at the start of the pandemic because scientists did not know how much asymptomatic spread was occurring at the time, has also said that he wanted to downplay the use of masks initially (in March 2020) in order to protect the withering supply needed by hospitals.

CNN’s John Berman set up the story by pithily noting, “The date [of the email] is February 5th, which is hugely important. She had asked you whether she should wear a mask on a trip and you responded to her, concluding, ‘I do not recommend that you wear a mask particularly since you’re going to a very low-risk location.’ That was February 5th. A lot has transpired since then. If you had to go back and do it all over again, would you tell her something different? Do you regret that?”

Fauci appeared to relish the response and clearing of the air, saying “Well, you know, John, let’s get real here. If you look at scientific information as it accumulates, what is going on in January and February, what you know as a fact as data guides what you tell people and your policies.  If March, April, May occur, you accumulate a lot more information and you modify and adjust your opinion and your recommendation based on the current science and current data.”

Yes, that is how scientific research works. You accumulate more data, analyze it, and course-correct. Which is exactly what Fauci did under the Trump administration and he explained in as simple of terms as possible for his critics who seem to willfully parade their ignorance on how scientific research is done.

“So, of COURSE, if we knew back then that a substantial amount of transmission was asymptomatic people, if we knew then that the data show that masks outside of a hospital setting actually do work, when we didn’t know it then; if we realize all of those things back then, of course, you are asking a question, would you have done something different if you know what you know now. Of course, people would have done that,” he concluded. “It’s so obvious.”

Watch above via CNN.