[michaelt]

Consider the surgeon general's (now-deleted) tweet saying “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” [1]

The discussion here is as follows:

1. The statement that masks are ineffective at stopping coronavirus is not true.

2. Those false statements are partly to blame for America's anti-masker problem (although the lion's share of the blame lies with Trump/GOP policy)

3. One lesson we might take away from this is, when authority figures knowingly make false statements during a crisis, that squanders credibility they may need later on. Perhaps leaders in future crises should think twice before repeating this mistake.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-fa...

[astrophysician]

I agree: in retrospect, in todays context, those statements are not good public health policy. And saying "they are not effective in preventing general public from catching coronavirus" may indeed be a false statement, even at the time. But, when masks were in short supply and when it wasn't really known how much protection they provide (so saying "hey masks might help" may give people a false sense of comfort thinking that they're protected and able to live as normal), those comments, while not the most objective, make way more sense.

But I think this "they lied to us, we shouldn't trust them" rhetoric is silly and dangerous. Again, I agree, it's definitely a lesson to learn. Public health professionals are human beings too and I think it's fair to say they are doing their jobs to the best of their ability.