If anyone is curious, the new yorker had an amazing piece of long-form reporting on the earlier days of the pandemic, written near the end of 2020 [1]. Section

If anyone is curious, the new yorker had an amazing piece of long-form reporting on the earlier days of the pandemic, written near the end of 2020 [1]. Section 14 is about masks in particular. It goes into the history of the CDC, what the pandemic playbook looked like in terms of "public relations" and how (and why!) it failed spectacularly in March/April of 2020. The answer is complicated and not straightforward. My read has been that, from a technical perspective, we knew exactly what policy and PR responses were appropriate, but executive politics leaked-in and delayed/prevented those appropriate responses. Pandemic response is supposed to be led by the CDC and supported by state, federal, local government officials. What we saw, instead, was politicians trying to lead and control the narratives, to disastrous effect. In my mind, it wasn't a party-affiliated error, but an ego-affiliated error. The biggest offenders were Cuomo [2], Pence, and Trump. [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-year https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/04/the-plague-yea... [2]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leaders-let-scientists-take-the-lead-new-yorks-did-not https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leade...