It's not a problem with a public reversal of something, it's forcing people to do X, censoring them online (twitter, youtube), and then 'whoops'.

People who were buying masks then were branded as conspiracy theorists, loonatics, got lauged at by commenters everywhere. And our scientists still claim, that the current findings are true, that they won't change, and that everyone not doing as instructed by the expert groups is an idiot again.