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This was due in part to the Surgeon General, who tweeted (forcefully) that masks didn't prevent the spread of COVID and anyway you shouldn't wear them to conser

This was due in part to the Surgeon General, who tweeted (forcefully) that masks didn't prevent the spread of COVID and anyway you shouldn't wear them to conserve them for the health workers who needed them to prevent the spread of COVID. The original tweet has been taken down (I wonder why?) but you can see it here: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/surgeon-general-americans-stop-buying-face-masks.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/surgeon-general-...

galangalalgol 3y ago
There was a good npr special on how the well meant deception that masks didn't work, and later that it wasn't a pandemic yet and we could still stop it, decreased trust in a way that ultimately backfired. I'd also add that they have been exaggerating the severity of most flu years (there have been some truly bad flu years) to get vaccinations up, which lead people to compare covid to those exaggerated numbers. Treating citizens like children that must be managed and given limited access to truth will lead to more and more truth management being necessary due to both mistrust and no practice at handling truth responsibly. But it wasn't just the mask statement. The whole narrative of minimizing the severity of the virus vs stop breathing and stay inside, swapped parties early on in the US. Almost like they said "nah I'm shirts this time and you are skins look at the polls". And much later fox news silently swapped again to support vaccines. It was said the latter was to have Murdoch's properties in the US and UK have a common story, but it could have been lobbying, or just management shifts. In the US antivax has either been right wing faith healing stuff or more commonly left leaning woo medicine stuff. In several countries it was the left against vaccines and masks the whole time. I think it may come down to which party is more individualistic and which is more cooperative in which countries. In the US the right has recently been more individual, but that wasn't always the case, and it isn't the case elsewhere.

galangalalgol 3y ago

There was a good npr special on how the well meant deception that masks didn't work, and later that it wasn't a pandemic yet and we could still stop it, decreased trust in a way that ultimately backfired. I'd also add that they have been exaggerating the severity of most flu years (there have been some truly bad flu years) to get vaccinations up, which lead people to compare covid to those exaggerated numbers. Treating citizens like children that must be managed and given limited access to truth will lead to more and more truth management being necessary due to both mistrust and no practice at handling truth responsibly. But it wasn't just the mask statement. The whole narrative of minimizing the severity of the virus vs stop breathing and stay inside, swapped parties early on in the US. Almost like they said "nah I'm shirts this time and you are skins look at the polls". And much later fox news silently swapped again to support vaccines. It was said the latter was to have Murdoch's properties in the US and UK have a common story, but it could have been lobbying, or just management shifts. In the US antivax has either been right wing faith healing stuff or more commonly left leaning woo medicine stuff. In several countries it was the left against vaccines and masks the whole time. I think it may come down to which party is more individualistic and which is more cooperative in which countries. In the US the right has recently been more individual, but that wasn't always the case, and it isn't the case elsewhere.