When the pandemic started, before the shutdowns but after the first panic, I bumped into a scared old woman in the tiny toiletry area of Target 1/ https://twitter.com/arpitrage/status/1275530655892492288

She was pacing, shaking her head. I asked if I could help her. With TEARS IN HER EYES, she told me she’d driven 40 miles that day looking for masks. She + her husband had underlying conditions + her daughter was calling from out of state every hr to see if she’d found some. 2/

I quoted Fauci to her, quoted @WHO. Told her not to worry, everyone said masks wouldn’t help anyways. She needed to focus on washing her hands, wiping down surfaces, staying home. I gave her the Lysol from my cart. 3/

She wiped her eyes. Said she was going to tell her daughter what I said and go home. 4/

And now you’re telling me it was not just a mistake, it was all a lie? A way to “nudge” behavior? I sent this woman home comforted and VULNERABLE. She stopped looking for masks! Because I believed these forked tongue bureaucrats! 5/

If the messaging had been, “Wear a cloth mask” this woman’s daughter could have sewed her one. I could have bought her one. We would have had the right information. Instead, I gave her harmful information and she went home. 6/

I can’t help wondering if she still gets to go home now? At the end of a long day? Or was she one of the 1,600 deaths in Colorado? Because she ran into me? An idiot who (for the very last time!) trusted the “people who know”. 7/

If she died, if she caught Covid before mask-wearing was suddenly saving, her death lays on the doorstep of Fauci, @CDCgov and @WHO. But it’s on my doorstep too - the helpful, gullible stranger.

I will never believe anyone in authority has our best interest at heart again. /