Fauci criticized Dr. Scott Atlas, a Stanford professor advising the Trump administration, for stating the current public health measures were overkill and recommending the following: 5. “Masks were overrated and that most people should be allowed to go about their lives normally because public health restrictions were upending the economy and exacting an exorbitant social cost.” What is Creator’s perspective?

We agree with Dr. Atlas on this perspective as well. The data have never supported mask use as an effective preventive measure on a public health level. It is largely a feel-good exercise embraced historically in the medical arena, and thus deeply grooved into consciousness as a requisite. This makes sense for containment of bacterial illnesses like tuberculosis but less so for viruses. To mask the entire public, especially in public spaces, makes little sense, and is particularly absurd to mandate mask-wearing while out of doors. It is more a feel-good exercise than a benefit and becomes a liability with the inevitable inconvenience, cost, and damage to society in reducing public participation in many activities and commercial enterprises. As things turned out, despite widespread masking, COVID-19 spread quite readily and, in fact, the statistics were no better in the U.S. where there were heavy mask mandates and lockdowns than in many countries with no such restrictions.