Fox News’s Tucker Carlson blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday over the various positions he’s taken on masks in the past year as a means of helping prevent the transmission of COVID-19.
Fauci joined in with other “experts” who are now recommending people wear two masks instead of one, calling it “common sense that it likely would be more effective.” Some networks have even touted studies that recommend wearing three masks.
Come on, Bridget. Double masks are soooo 2020.
— Carly Ortiz-Lytle (@intlcarly) January 27, 2021
This is 2021, we triple mask here.pic.twitter.com/XLPZuv4PMS
“So double-masking is ‘just common sense, just common sense!'” Carlson said mocking the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director. “How long are people going to put up with this? Follow the logic. Wouldn’t it just be safer at this point just for people to stop breathing entirely? You wouldn’t get COVID. You kind of get the impression that’s kind of where Tony Fauci may be a few months from now.”
Fauci’s latest position is a far cry from what he originally said about masks on March 8, 2020—that people “should not be walking around with masks.”
“When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people 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 said at the time. “And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.”
He later admitted in June that his original advice was due to concern about shortages of N95 and surgical masks for the healthcare community, and his position on masks has continued to evolve.
Carlson wondered why people like Fauci are being listened to at all, calling him a “malignant buffoon.”
At the end of a bit on this insane notion that we should look seriously at wearing two or three masks, #Tucker calls Dr. Tony Fauci "a malignant buffoon."
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 28, 2021
"This guy is a malignant buffoon. He is and the teachers unions are actively hurting children. They are." pic.twitter.com/bikIfzjEbZ
The COVID-19 protection guidelines put forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention state masks should be worn “to protect yourself and others and stop the spread of COVID-19,” in addition to other precautions, like social distancing.