Originally Posted by
Gunfighter
It's likely Dr. Fauci intentionally misled the public for "the greater good". He wasn't promoting masks early on, because he saw the full stupidity of the American consumer on display in the toilet paper aisle of every grocery store. By not promoting masks, he was hoping to keep them available for healthcare workers while mask suppliers ramped up capacity. As far as moving the herd immunity number, he doesn't know the number and admitted so in an interview. When he saw it was likely we would reach his first guess, he confirmed upping his estimate to encourage higher vaccination rates.
The mask shortage was caused by Chinese buyers, Fauci's lies made zero sense at the time. Masks were gone from my area by mid January 2020, as the local big box stores here, shipped them all to overseas buyers. Healthcare companies could have sourced PPE from additional American manufacturers during this time, but chose not to, due to cost. There was never a shortage of reusable respirators at any point in this pandemic either.