The modern public doesn't have patience for lies. The messaging around the masks was explicitly untruthful, as we now know. Once the public picked up on that, the CDC etc. lost the benefit of the doubt, and that got us to where we are now. What you're referencing is the effect, not the cause.
At the beginning it was "don't hog masks" because there was a shortage, it's effectiveness vs COVID was unknown, and healthcare workers needed them to do their job - it would be a problem if Nurse Nancy breathed additional germs onto Little Timmy who is already weaken because he is sick.
Later it's confirm that masks are effective vs COVID and the shortage has ceased so you should definitely wear them.
But to a good chunk of the public, context and nuance is completely lost on them.
As gfodor said, this is an utter lie. The Powers that Be explicitly told us that masks did not help against COVID-19, then completely reversed itself and told us that everyone should wear masks while claiming either a) "We never said masks did not help against COVID-19", or b) "We said 'masks don't help' to avoid a shortage for medical personnel". Now, as geekybear and the_third_wave said, it seems like TPTB was right at the start, albeit for completely the wrong reason, but that doesn't take away the seriousness of the initial lie that led to more.
Just before COVID-19 became widespread in the US, I discussed with my dentist brother the advice media was giving about how masks wouldn't help. Hearing his skepticism about said advice was my first clue about how the media was being used to spread falsities about the epidemic.
The proper messaging was: "we need to keep the mask supply up for medical workers if it turns out masks are effective in helping reduce their exposure. we don't know yet if masks are effective, they might be, and we are researching this right now as fast as we can. in the meantime, it seems prudent to assume they may help, and we ask the public to avoid buying masks for the time being while we increase the supply so our medical workers can have them."
This has never been proven in any real sense, certainly not enough to justify mandatory masking. Now that the smoke is starting to clear a bit it is becoming clear that "There is not enough evidence to suggest medical-grade face masks protect vulnerable people from Covid" [1] and that "There is just no evidence that they — masks — make any difference ... There’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference” [2]. A similar conclusion was reached earlier by an oft-cited Danish study [3] from 2020 so it can not be said that these are new insights. This also makes it clear that forcing people to wear masks was not based on scientific data and as such can not be justified as "following science".
[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/12/face-masks-prote...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/21/opinion/do-mask-mandates-...
> certainly not enough to justify mandatory masking
This is the part that I don't get. People like you act like wearing a breathable fabric over your nose and mouth is some kind of huge sacrifice. Healthcare workers wear them everyday. The Japanese wear them whenever they are out and are sick with the flu/cold - some Japanese women even just wear them because they were too lazy to put on makeup that day. It's such a dumb thing to kick up a fuss over.
