Francis Collins of the NIH says the shifting guidance on face masks reflects earlier efforts to preserve enough masks for first responders and a growing understanding of how the virus spreads.
WASHINGTON — The head of the National Institutes of Health said it’s understandable that Americans have been confused by shifting medical guidance around the issue of wearing face masks to protect against COVID-19, but denied that the different messages have been contradictory.
And at the time, a limited supply of masks — especially those that filter air before it is breathed — were in short supply. This prompted medical experts and government leaders to urge the public not to buy them to make sure that hospital workers and other first responders had enough. Story continues“There’s nothing here that’s not consistent. It’s just based upon new information that we’ve been gathering over the last three months,” Collins said. “This is a totally different idea. That is, ‘I should now wear a mask so that I’m not infecting somebody else.’ It's not to save me. It’s to save them from me.”
Collins, a prominent convert to Christianity, expressed surprise and dismay at the level of resistance to wearing masks, especially among other Christians. President Barack Obama appointed Collins to head the NIH in 2009, and Trump reappointed him at the beginning of his presidency. Collins in 2011 was included on a list of Washington’s “most powerful, least famous people.”
“That would be pretty remarkable in such a timetable. But there are lots of things that could go wrong. So one needs to be realistic about this,” he cautioned.
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