The medical community has war gamed pandemics for years. I wasn't surprised to see the "masks don't help" line because that's been part of the lessons learned f

The medical community has war gamed pandemics for years. I wasn't surprised to see the "masks don't help" line because that's been part of the lessons learned from these war games. They knew there would be panic buying so they had this bit of subterfuge ready to go when a pandemic hit. The problem is that it is a bee-sting solution: one use only. Now that COVID19 has turned out to be far less dire than predicted, that bee-sting solution is gone and wasted. When we get a much more deadly pandemic, and we will, that tool will no longer be available. It's a shame it was used for this situation. Sure, we could learn from this to always have enough PPE in stock but once this pandemic is over, every year there is going to be pressure on budgets on every level to cut the size (and cost) of PPE storage until it eventually shrinks down to what it was when this pandemic started. If the medical community wants to regain some of its credibility it needs to stop circling the wagons and pretending this wasn't an intentional but well meaning lie they told the public. The longer it takes them to stop spinning the issue, the longer it is going to take them to regain the trust of the public, which will be detrimental to public health.