The Surgeon General tweeted [0]: > Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus The CDC

The Surgeon General tweeted [0]: > Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus The CDC's main page had much more nuanced advice (as of late March 2020) [1]: > Wear a facemask if you are sick... If you are NOT sick: You do not need to wear a facemask unless you are caring for someone who is sick (and they are not able to wear a facemask). Facemasks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers. I agree that the distrust that we are currently seeing has many different sources. It is hard to have consistency when many different organizations are communicating their own messages based on different views of the problem. Even if you could fix that messaging, it would not have addressed the issue of deliberate disinformation. However, statements like that tweet from the Surgeon General were indefensible based on evidence and clearly damaging to public discourse. Not to mention being nonsense: why would we prioritize masks for health care providers if they weren't effective? [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20200302023223/https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/1233725785283932160 https://web.archive.org/web/20200302023223/https://twitter.c... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20200325234207/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prepare/prevention.html https://web.archive.org/web/20200325234207/https://www.cdc.g...