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Dr. Anthony Fauci “a...: Dr. Anthony Fauci “admitted” in a recent interview that face masks were a “failure.” Social media posts are misrepresenting what Fauci said about masks and COVID-19 and omitting part of his response. The nation’s former top infectious disease expert said mask initiatives may have a small impact at the community level, but in the following sentence he said he believes a properly worn, high-quality mask can be effective protection for an individual. The remarks were made in an interviewpublishedby The New York Times Magazine this week, months after Faucistepped downfrom his post as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. One tweet claims: “Now Fauci admits masks don’t work after forcing them on kids.” “So yesterday Fauci publicly admitted masks were a failure,” reads a caption on an Instagram post that received more than 6,000 likes. The post included an image quoting Fauci as saying “masks work at the margins — maybe 10 percent.” But Fauci told the AP in an email that his comments “were taken out of context and distorted.” The interviewer, David Wallace-Wells, asked Fauci about the national debate over masks, asking whether the “culture-war fights over masking” were “worth it” and citing arandomized trialconducted in Bangladesh to suggest that increased mask use reduced COVID-19 by about 10 percent. “It’s a good point in general, but I disagree with your premise a bit,” Fauci is quoted as responding. “From a broad public-health standpoint, at the population level, masks work at the margins — maybe 10 percent. But for an individual who religiously wears a mask, a well-fitted KN95 or N95, it’s not at the margin. It really does work.” In other words, Fauci was distinguishing between whether mask-wearing initiatives are effective at reducing COVID-19 in a community and whether properly worn, high-quality masks provide individuals with protection. The Bangladesh study involved providing free masks, of different varieties, as well as encouraging mask-wearing in select villages. The researchers found that mask-wearing increased to about 42% in such villages, whereas about 13% of people wore masks in villages without the interventions. Even without full mask-wearing adherence, the villages with the mask interventions observed a nearly 12% reduction in individuals with COVID-19-like symptoms. Fauci said in an email that “when you look at a study from a population standpoint you may not account for the fact even though masks are recommended and/or required, many people do not wear them some or all of the time or they do not fit properly.” “However, I made it eminently and explicitly clear that when masks are used consistently and properly, at the individual level they are highly effective,” Fauci added. Jason Abaluck, a Yale economics professor and co-author of the Bangladesh study, likewise said in an email that there are two separate questions at hand: Do high-quality masks prevent COVID-19? And do public efforts to increase masking reduce COVID-19? A key factor for the latter, Abaluck said, is whether the initiative works in getting people to actually wear the masks. (Source: Associated Press - AP News)