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I've said this before but I'll bring it up again - people get tripped up about Covid because they don't understand it was truly novel. We have never, ever had a situation like Covid and honestly we probably won't in our lifetimes.

Our common knowledge about how things should go or what recommendations are correct just does not apply. Nobody knew anything about anything. We had to figure everything out on the fly.

The result is that yes, we were often wrong and our guidelines were a moving target. This isn't like Polio or Measles - public health threats we understand. But, just because we changed our minds or were wrong doesn't mean anybody was lying. It means that we made mistakes.

And, doing super low-risk things like masking, even if we're not 100% sure it works, makes a lot of sense. Nobody dies from wearing a mask. So even if we think there's a chance it could save some lives, it makes absolute sense to recommend it. I mean, it's not surgery or medication.