“Dr. Fauci lied about masks in March”, Rubio
tweeted on Sunday morning. “Dr. Fauci has distorted the level of vaccination necessary for the herd’s immunity.”
Facts first: Rubio’s claims are false and misleading. Fauci did not lie about masks. Although Fauci, along with several other US health leaders, initially advised people not to wear masks, their guidance has evolved along with the scientific community’s understanding of the coronavirus. Likewise, Fauci insisted that any change in the numbers he provided on herd immunity is due in large part to the new science and represents the fact that there are a number of estimates for the required level.
There is some basis for Rubio’s claim about Fauci’s position on the herd’s immunity levels. Last week, The New York Times reported that Fauci acknowledged that he was “slowly but deliberately” raising his estimates to the level of vaccination needed to achieve collective immunity.
According to the article, Fauci said: “When polls said that only half of all Americans would get the vaccine, I was saying that collective immunity would take 70 to 75 percent. So when more recent polls indicated that 60 percent a hundred or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can increase this a little bit’, so I went to 80, 85. “But even in his interview with the New York Times, Fauci avoided a definitive number and reiterated that there is a range of possibilities.
Fauci clarified his position in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on State of the Union Sunday, which aired more than an hour before Rubio tweeted.
When asked why he was not straightforward at the outset about the highest level of vaccinated population needed to achieve herd immunity, Fauci rejected the idea that he had used certain data points to distort people’s perceptions. “I don’t think it can be interpreted as being straightforward or not,” he said, adding that “these are pure estimates” and, later, “nobody knows for sure”.
Fauci explained that he was not basing his recommendation mainly on research on the public perception of the vaccine, but that his highest estimates were influenced by highly transmissible measles, which needs at least 90% of the vaccinated population to maintain collective immunity.
“It is not a big leap from 75 to 85. It was based on pure measles calculations and extrapolations,” said Fauci. He noted that the variation for coronavirus is probably less than 90% because the coronavirus is less transmissible than measles.
In masks
Fauci told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta during a CITZEN by CNN Conference that his evolving advice on masks is a “classic example” of how guidance can change as additional scientific evidence emerges. The pandemic, he said, is an “evolving situation”.
In March, both the World Health Organization and the CDC said that the masks should be reserved for those who are sick or caring for the sick, but later reversed their orientation after doctors learned more about how the coronavirus spreads.
Fauci explained that in the spring, “we did not know that 40 to 45% of people were asymptomatic, nor did we know that a substantial proportion of infected people were infected by people without symptoms”. Once that became clear from the data, Fauci said, “it makes it extremely important that everyone wears a mask”.
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