First of all, I didn't mention the CDC. Much of what I was talking about was about what HN and forums like this talked about. However, some of these things do apply to health authorities. Fortunately for me, I don't need to rely on my recollection.

https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/12337257852839321...

I will quote it here:

> Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

> They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!

> http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm

And of course, Fauci told everyone not to wear masks. But that doesn't matter. This is the Surgeon General saying "They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching Coronavirus". That is a categorical statement.

I stand corrected! I had forgotten that the Surgeon General said that.

My theory is that when people think that the guidance has radically shifted throughout the COVID-19 epidemic, it's because they are getting their information from non-authoritative sources. But like your example, sometimes the "authoritative sources" are super wrong.

Dr Fauci did eventually admit that the guidance on masks was not optimal:

> "We have to admit it, that that mixed message in the beginning, even though it was well meant to allow masks to be available for health workers, that was detrimental in getting the message across," Fauci said in an interview with Mary Louise Kelly of NPR's All Things Considered. "No doubt about it."

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/01/8862991...

What about your points 2 and 3?

>Dr Fauci did eventually admit that the guidance on masks was not optimal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI

That is Dr Fauci himself on 60 minutes in early March saying that Americans should not be wearing masks. I guess he changed his mind. People want to say, "Yes he changed his mind due to new evidence." Ok what evidence? I want to see it. And it better be from just before they changed their views and not after they changed their views.

Points 2 and 3 are HN responses to my comments or adjacent ones. It's going to be a bit hard to find them now, but I'll post them at the bottom. Listen, I really don't want to Gish Gallop you, but there's no way for me to claim people were saying this without showing you people saying this: (and there are way more people saying this on Reddit and Twitter, but time is short, so I can't do any more research for you)

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22777170 (claims that training is required or you're going to get rekt, read thread)

1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22776396 (while doesn't claim a no-threshold model, the threshold is a hundred viral particles)

2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22735235

3: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22734656

4: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22734923

5: https://twitter.com/WHOWPRO/status/1243171683067777024?s=20 (the WHO saying not to wear a mask, by the way)

6: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22530340

7: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22610180

8: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22595955

9: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22559272

10: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22528527

11: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22529273

Ah, I misread your original post. I thought you were talking about the official recommendations being wrong and then changing. The "general public shouldn't wear masks" is one example where the guidance changed, but I'd argue that overall it's been relatively consistent.

If you are just looking for random people on the Internet being wrong, then yes, there are lots of examples of that!

Well, it started with the officials because let's just say we're not working with very good raw material here. It's like the tar sands, you know. We have the tar sands, some other guys have shale, and some others have some delicious light crude.

I agree 100%. The US's response to this entire pandemic was, and still is, a cluster fsck. A lot misinformation could have been prevented with strong and consistent leadership.

>They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching Coronavirus

The N95 masks weren't, and aren't, in the sense he meant. People have said over and over, the way the masks we're wearing now are effective is in protecting others from us, should we be infected.

I used to accept that the "party line" changed, but now I think it's just a misunderstanding.

N95 masks very likely do provide a lot of protection from airborne virus droplets and aerosols, but they are still unavailable in most parts of the world including the US. I was able to find some Korean KF94 masks though. There is no evidence for one way protection btw. It may be true but right now it is entirely speculative.