> "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
There was absolutely quite a bit of false messaging on the point from authority figures.
https://web.archive.org/web/20200229123317/https://twitter.c...
"Stop buying masks. There is a shortage and if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk! Since we live in a very capitalistic society we cannot reserve masks for healthcare use and instead we have to rely on all of you to do the right thing. Keep in mind that masks may not offer the kind of protection you think they do, i.e. they do not make you invincible, you're still advised to stay at home and keep social distancing. When supply of masks will be restored we will likely encourage people to wear them as to reduce community (probabilistic) spread, which works even if the masks are not 100% effective."
Unfortunately nobody would read things that don't fit in a tweet.
It’s really not that hard.
This may be true or not; all I'm saying is that the sentence is not an accurate summary of what I wrote.
(b) A tweet only has so much room to explain things. There's a reason websites in general, official CDC recommendations in particular, and the news media exist. If the only source of information you get your news from for several weeks amidst a pandemic is Twitter, and the tweet turns out to be lacking some info, the problem isn't the source you're reading.
(c) Even if you establish there was "false messaging from the surgeon general on Twitter" (which you haven't due to the reasons above), it's quite a goalpost move from "the CDC was being deceptive/manipulative". Especially when the the surgeon general was picked by the president and specifically not the NIH authority figure that the nation was looking up to 24/7.
They should have instead said "We don't know whether they're effective yet, so don't hoard them, because doing so could cause X."
There's nothing wrong with admitting you don't know something yet.
Instead, they make commands without supporting evidence. That implies total disregard for the peoples' intelligence. Upon realizing this, trust is lost and dissenting actions increase.
So far the only link I've seen is a tweet (not an official recommendation) from the surgeon general (not the CDC).
> "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
This could very easily have been reworded to an honest "we do not know if they are effective" instead of a definitive "they are not". You cannot in good conscience call yourself a good leader and/or scientist if you do not acknowledge the limits of your understanding.
People may not understand the science, but they understand trust. And given that no individual has the time and/or intelligence to understand the science, breaches of trust should be the end of a leader's career. They're failing in their most important duty.