You are right, many epidemiologists and related experts did assert that masks would not be useful to fight coronavirus. And they were wrong.

On the other hand, if it's a "colossal messaging fuckup" and damages "credibility and trustworthiness", then you pretty much have to give up on the whole 'science' thing entirely.

They were under the mistaken impression that coronaviruses were spread by large droplets produced by symptomatic individiuals---in which case social distancing and washing your hands would be as effective as masks, and the previous history (and current experience) says that convincing people to use masks correctly and consistently is very difficult. Further, having people stock up on masks like they were stocking up on toilet paper would mean that those who couldn't get along without them would be SOL.

Then it turned out that coronavirus could be transmitted as an aerosol, asymptomatically, meaning that social distancing and handwashing, while useful, were a lot less useful. Hence, masks.

But if you are expecting science to produce a single, correct, consistent TRUTH on demand, you are going to be disappointed. In fact, you're probably better off sticking with The_Donald memes, since they're all of the same quality.

i will begin this by saying that i am vaccinated and wear a mask. the CDC misled americans about the efficacy of masks specifically to reduce demand so that medical pros could get them. it's one thing to ask and another to straight up lie[1]. when an institution literally admits it is not truthful, that it is operating on some level where you must parse their motivations and countervailing evidence to determine whether they will give you correct advice, why should it be a surprise that people don't trust them?

this doesn't even get into the fact that fauci personally approved funding for GoF coronavirus research at the WIV, a fact which he has still not even acknowledged. there are many, many other reasons to distrust the CDC, but these are the ones that i found most personally flagrant.

[1] https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

The fuckup wasn't that we didn't know as much about the virus a year ago than we do today, but that by Fauci's admission the messaging to discourage mask use was adopted to avoid PPE shortages for healthcare workers. That's not "the whole 'science' thing" that's just bad comms.

To be clear I was fine with saving masks for healthcare workers and maybe there wasn't a better way to do that against the backdrop of people going apeshit in the paper goods aisle, but the point still stands.