The “Nobel Lie” probably wasn't, just the result of confusion and a pretense that the health authorities knew what they were talking about.
The standard explanation is it was all a cunning plan to preserve mask supplies for healthcare workers. Anthony Fauci has suggested this on a few occasions as summarised by Noah Smith:
“…according to Fauci, public health experts knew that even cloth masks helped prevent the spread of COVID-19, but they were worried that if they admitted that cloth masks work, people would conclude that N95 masks work even better (which is true), and hoard N95s, thus depriving medical workers who needed the supplies more.”
I don’t think this is true. We can’t see what the US experts were saying to each other at the time, but the UK government has published the internal minutes of deliberations by expert science teams who would have had very similar information to their American counterparts. Those documents don’t reveal a coherent plot to pretend they thought masks wouldn’t work, unless months of fraudulent minutes and other kayfabe were also part of the conspiracy- it just seems more likely that most of them just really believed masks were ineffective, or at least weren’t confident enough about what they thought to fight about it.
One of the reasons there was a shortage of masks in the first place was the consensus that they were ineffective for regular people. The UK pandemic flu plan:
Facemasks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good respiratory, hand, and home hygiene behaviour in order for them to achieve the intended benefit. Research also shows that compliance with these recommended behaviours when wearing facemasks for prolonged periods reduces over time.
Accordingly,
"In line with the scientific evidence, the Government will not stockpile facemasks for general use in the community."
Based on the expert view that regular people just wouldn’t make good use of them, the UK standing stockpile was reduced to keeping masks for healthcare workers only. The CDC had similar longstanding guidelines in place prior to the pandemic, so it’s not plausible to believe that the anti-mask stance came about because of shortages- rather the shortages were (in part) caused by the belief.
At the end of January 2020, as the pandemic began to bite in China and masks were made mandatory there, the UK NERVTAG (New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group) committee was asked whether the standing view, that masks wouldn’t help regular people, should change. Again, they said there was no evidence in support of members of the public using masks, and advised their colleagues to keep the recommendation against wearing them, with an extra focus on washing hands:
The Committee reported that there is no evidence to support that the wearing of face masks by the general public reduces transmission. It was also noted that this may add to fear and anxiety.
If this was all a fake campaign to keep back masks for healthcare workers, then it’s very odd again that in mid February, as cases were beginning to be imported into the UK, healthcare workers in the nursing homes where the UK would see most of its first-wave covid deaths were told:
During normal day-to-day activities facemasks do not provide protection from respiratory viruses such as COVID-19 and do not need to be worn by staff in any of these settings
In March 2020, NERVTAG, who had previously said that there was no evidence masks could be effective, began to debate the issue again with Dr Lisa Ritchie, the Head of Infection Prevention and Control for NHS England, though it was framed around messaging, rather than science:
Members raised concerns around explaining why facemasks were acceptable for healthcare staff but not the general public
Ritchie told the panel:
“healthcare staff are trained to use the masks and know when to change the masks when they become soggy or contaminated however with the general public, there is no control over how they would use the surgical facemasks so they may use the same one for a week which is inappropriate.”
The author generously gives the experts the benefit of the doubt:.
Given that what we can read in minutes and contemporary statements from public health officials shows a muddle of disagreement, why are so many people invested in the idea that this was an organised conspiracy and not just a panicked fudge during a difficult time to be an expert?
I think this might be a dual handed coping strategy for dealing with stress of the pandemic and the pressures of decision-making in public health. If everyone believes that an omniscient public health bureaucracy “knew really” what the right thing was, but lied out of a sense of duty to the public, then you can probably sleep more soundly: the total chaos of those first few months is much more frightening to imagine (and reflects worse on people occupying those roles) than a chain of command possessed of all the facts making a morally difficult
Fair enough: no one in the medical epidemiology crowd knew what the hell was going on, and faked it until they made it. That doesn’t excuse the panicked decision to shut down the world and deprive children in the US the opportunity to be indoctrinated for 20 months, but okay. If Fauci had stopped there, he might be forgiven for being an addled-old man who was trying his best, but he’s made the wrong call on every single issue that’s arisen since December, 1919. Just a few examples:
On December 3, 2020, Fauci bashed Britain for ‘rushing to approve the Pfizer vaccine. On December 10, Fauci cheered the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer vaccine.
From the beginning of the panic and continuing for more than a year afterward, Fauci denied that there was any possibility that the China Flu was created and then escaped from a Chinese military laboratory, and let his president twist in the wind while the crapolas called Trump a lying fool who had triggered a wave of black-on Asian-Americann hate crimes. Fauci defended the Chinese, defended the WHO’s “inspection” of the lab (the inspectors were denied access to the lab and weren’t allowed to interview the doctors involved) and, taking their lead from the poor, befuddled fool, social media sites banned any discussion that refuted Fauci’s position.
Yesterday 17 months after the first skepticism was voiced about the batwing soup theory, and after the CDC itself admitted that there was something fishy going on, Fauci conceded that he “was no longer confident” that COVID had developed naturally, and called for a new investigation.
He’s changed his position on mask requirements so many times that no one, including Fauci himself, knows what any given week’s official position is: masks for everyone, even when outside, alone on a surfboard, 1000 yards from anyone?; masks when attending church, or Trump rallies, but not for BLM riots, because the COVID respects correct politics?; masks not required for vaccinated individuals gathering indoors, except for children, who must wear them indoors, or at play outdoors? And, the biggest question on masks, one that Fauci hasn’t even addressed, let alone answered, if the vaccine prevents getting the flu or carrying it and passing it on, why should vaccinated people worry about the unvaccinated at all?
Then there’s the herd immunity lies, natural immunity lies (studies of Spanish Flu survivors showed that they retained their immunity 75 years later), and so on and forth.
I’m not suggesting that we drag this feeble, always-wrong octogenarian out of his office and throw hm bodily into the street, but it’s probably long past time we awarded him a (second — it’s been 13 years since his first one) Presidential Medal of Freedom (previously received, by the way, by Mickey Mouse, 1964), a nice bouquet of flowers, and a hearty handshake of thanks and goodbye from a grateful nation,
