
CDC recommends people wear cloth masks to block the spread of Covid-19 - ceejayoz
https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/3/21206044/masks-cloth-coronavirus-cdc-recommendation-guidelines-wear-spread-prevent-covid-19
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Afforess
When the current COVID-19 crisis has past, and historians look at government
responses, the CDC messaging on masks may be the single biggest mistake the US
made. Bigger than the testing fuckup, bigger than the complete lack of contact
tracing. It is _still_ bizarre to me that a government agency staffed with
presumably some of the most qualified, well-educated public officials decided
to set their public credability _on fire_ over the mask shortage.

If they had instead said: "Yes there is a mask shortage, please reserve N95
masks for healthcare workers, and use cloth or surgical masks for personal
everyday errands" then there would have been no controversy, and arguably a
much better outcome. Why did the CDC decide that instead of cooperating with
the public, to do this obvious lie and manipulate us? It's something I would
expect to see from an authoritarian failed state, not a western democracy. And
now, after it's been exposed as nonsense, we have this baffling about-face,
long after the CDC's credibility has been shredded, and for what? Nothing.
Worse than nothing, because now no one trusts the CDC.

~~~
Bertio
To be fair, it wasn't just the CDC, but also the WHO, Canadian, UK, European
officials, all in the same vote.

~~~
bitxbitxbitcoin
All of the orgs you mentioned (except the WHO) were following the WHO - which
is another organization that this crisis has shown we absolutely cannot trust.

