⁣In a 60 Minute COVID-19 segment aired March 8, 2020,9 Fauci said masks are “important for someone who is infected to prevent them from infecting someone else,” but that “right now in the United States, people should not be walking around with masks; there’s no reason to walk around with a mask.”

He also noted that “when you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask may make you feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.” He also pointed out there are unintended consequences of mask wearing that can increase your infection risk, things like touching your mask and then touching your face.

Overall, his message in March was that masks should be reserved for health care professionals. A couple weeks later, in early April 2020, he suddenly did a radical about-face and changed his messaging, urging people to wear cloth masks in public unless they could maintain a 6-foot distance from others.