Present truth and facts backing policy: Not managing public perception correctly.
Tell public what needs to be done but omit details: Conserve N95's with "masks don't work" all over again.
So what should they have said in the beginning? If they don't give technical reasons, they will be accused of talking down from their ivory tower, dictating policy with a 'just trust us' attitude, or of being biased/political.
But if they give technical reasons, people will nitpick those, especially if the data is incomplete or evolving.
There were lots of people being correct and nuanced, but they were drowned out (partly for political reasons I suspect).
Probably something like “Masks aren’t proven to help yet, but unless covid is unlike any other respiratory disease they probably won’t hurt.” Yes, this could’ve caused a rush on them (though maybe that would’ve alleviated some of the need in hospitals?) and we would’ve had to deal with that, but lying to people in the name “for their own good” is not empathizing with them.
Getting too deep into technical reasons in the middle of such an event is not understanding the definition of teachable moment. Most people aren’t open to learning deep knowledge when their fear or other emotions are up, but it can take real skill to avoid diving into details as an expert. And I have some sympathy for people getting metaphorical microphones shoved in their face, but that just goes back to my point about public health (and medical people in general) needing to know that their job is as much soft skill as hard.
the simpler reframing is to tell people the truth, and do it so it's not overwhelming to folks ("having empathy") who have many competing attention-grabbing issues in their lives (i.e., they're busy, not stupid).
and regarding masks, the simple truth is, they don't help in most common situations (i.e., out in public, where distancing does all the work), and it's extremely hard to get folks to use them in the one common situation where they can be effective: social/family gatherings. masks were never going to be an effective mitigation for this one reason alone, but because of their visible, performative value, became immediately politicized.
Actually, public health officials need to maintain the trust of the public, or no one will listen.
And you won't be trusted if everything coming out of your mouth is a lie, no matter what your intentions.
Your position of "you won't be trusted if everything coming out of your mouth is a lie" is fully compatible with this framework.
Considering the other person's mental model and incorporating their terminology when communicating with them, even when they're a bit wrong, isn't "lying" - it's basic empathy.
Earlier in the summer, we lifted mask mandates “because the vaccines were preventing disease”, and regardless of the technical facts behind that decision, the perception was reality for the general public. Now they are trying to walk that back to “vaccines prevent serious disease” in the face of delta breakthroughs but the baseline had already been set.
Not to mention the fact that experts continue to pedantically stick to their definition of serious disease as “needed oxygen in the hospital”, once again out of touch with the layperson’s opinion that a week of debilitating sickness at home followed by a month of weakness until full recovery seems pretty “serious” and something people do not want. Boosters are appealing because laypeople don’t want any serious-by-their-definition disease and experts seemingly are incapable of acknowledging or understanding that, let alone their part in creating confusing messaging (partly to appease a 3rd set of people who ironically don’t really want to hear from them at all).
Public health officials need to understand that their primary job is managing public perception of a situation first and foremost. They can go push their glasses up and pedantically spout off technical corrections behind closed doors as much as they want, but in public they have to connect and empathize with normal humans.
Part of this probably comes from medicine’s continued promulgation of their air of expertise (read: superiority) that they’ve affected for a long while, but things like compassion and bedside-manner at lower importance. I worked in medicine and studied public health, and this status-over-all-else attitude was one of the reasons I left.