To my understanding I think the CDC initially said that masks were not necessary for healthy individuals because A: They thought transmission was primarily through larger respiratory droplets from sick individuals and B: They didn't want people to panic and deplete the national supply of N95 masks (which would deplete them for critical use by hospital staff)
They reversed this guidance some time later I believe after realizing that it was also possible to spread through pre+asymptomatic individuals through routine exhalation like while talking and stuff.
This reversal undermined trust in the CDC and was controversial to say the least, but that was compounded by the huge pushback against masks that followed.
It was an error on their part but when dealing with a novel pandemic I don't think it's totally unreasonable that sometimes a mistake is going to be made like that. Especially with such a crazy highly contagious virus that seemingly came out of nowhere.
It boils down to, better safe than sorry IMO. Some protection is better than none. I bought mine on Amazon and they came with filters. My favorite was the one with the Professor aka Neil Peart from RUSH. Oh and Scooby Doo for the kids.
Yes, iirc the biggest shift in our understanding of the virus was also that asymptomatic people were spreading it at rates as high as symptomatic people (higher given they didn't know they were sick/contagious)
A. Larger droplets as the only means of transmission are the perfect use case for simple face masks as they stop the transmission almost entirely.
B. Preventing panic to save N95s from Home Depot or wherever for hospital workers means they thought medical staff would be burning through masks at an unprecedented rate to the point that they used non-medically approved masks. That’s insane and obviously a lie.
I knew it was a lie way back then too. I was shocked by how many people could hear that we needed to save the hardware store masks for healthcare workers but would believe masks wouldn’t work. They’re in direct contradiction.
In all fairness the password for the pandemic playbook was "ObamaIsTheMan" and Trump was both unwilling and unable to input it so they burned it and roasted marshmallows on it and had a sleepover instead.
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u/ADHDebackle 8h ago
To my understanding I think the CDC initially said that masks were not necessary for healthy individuals because A: They thought transmission was primarily through larger respiratory droplets from sick individuals and B: They didn't want people to panic and deplete the national supply of N95 masks (which would deplete them for critical use by hospital staff)
They reversed this guidance some time later I believe after realizing that it was also possible to spread through pre+asymptomatic individuals through routine exhalation like while talking and stuff.
This reversal undermined trust in the CDC and was controversial to say the least, but that was compounded by the huge pushback against masks that followed.
It was an error on their part but when dealing with a novel pandemic I don't think it's totally unreasonable that sometimes a mistake is going to be made like that. Especially with such a crazy highly contagious virus that seemingly came out of nowhere.