It seemed pretty obvious to me at the time that they were protecting
against mask hoarding when masks were in short supply and needed for medical workers.
They clearly screwed up in their messaging because of how people are viewing that information now, but they were in an impossible spot. If they said masks were effective, there would have been a run on them and the incredible PPE shortage at hospitals would have been even worse than we experienced. And as KC mentioned below, the need for the general public should have been lower because they were supposed to be locked in at home.
So the experts made a tough call and misled the public to protect the most immediate, critical need in fighting the virus. Again, they screwed up in that it backfired because of the perceived flip-flop, but the opposite outcome would have probably been just as bad if not worse.
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In response to this post by 501)
Posted: 07/12/2020 at 12:02PM