People (on HN) are acting like the misinformation being targeted was innocent stuff on 51:49 judgement calls — complete retconning of the abject lunacy profiteers were out there saying. Talk to anyone in health care, people were nebulizing bleach and hydrogen peroxide, convincing their vets to give them literal animal medicine when the supplies of human ivermectin were cut off, taking fish antiparasite drugs, and on and on. There were prominent VCs who claimed they “were literally saving lives” by incessantly promoting sham medicines. Many of the “doctors” in those front line groups made millions of dollars off their grifts in selling rxs to anyone with a check book. I don’t know that there were better citizens than Pfizer and Moderna during the pandemic, but there were absolutely much worse ones.

People were censored early in the pandemic for saying that wearing masks was a good idea, and a number of other things that are now widely accepted as true.

Can you be more specific? Who, where, and what did they say?

I ask because social media was full of that discussion so if there was any censorship it must have been highly ineffective.

Another excellent example of retconning. Who specifically was censored for saying that?

I don't know about censored, but from what I remember there was a bit of an about face on masking. This timeline seems to mesh with what I remember: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd...

And I think some platforms (specifically, I believe YouTube and Twitter, but maybe others) prevented or de-funded etc., content that was contradictory to CDC guidelines.

Some lies are necessary. Put yourself in the shoes of a public health official. You just got home from shopping for groceries, and the whole toilet paper aisle was empty. You know very well that the same thing will happen with masks and other PPE needed by medical personnel if you tell the truth, and that this will likely result in an even-higher death toll. What do you do?

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

I was responding factually to the assertion. I didn't state whether I thought it was right or speculate on the motive. On that though:

I agree that medical workers should have received priority for supplies they need, both because they obviously need to be kept healthy to help everyone, and because it seems fair to do so.

I doubt the CDC would base their guidance on that though, although it does say that medical workers need them more, their statements imply that normal people didn't need to wear them to prevent the spread of the disease, which is what the CDC was after, not necessarily stating that it wouldn't help people to wear them, although I think the assertion was also somewhat that it wouldn't help people to wear them. Of course, this changed as they learned more. Even today, I believe this is the state of things, masking helps you somewhat, but it's even more beneficial for the people around you.

That said, I wouldn't approve of the CDC giving false guidance about masks to protect medical workers. Even if medical workers should get priority, and the government had to enforce that, the CDC should be trustworthy, and shouldn't lie, even if it's beneficial.

You tell the truth, because if you tell such an obvious lie it will reduce trust in all future public health announcements!

OK, you tell the truth. The same idiots who are still working their way through acres of hoarded TP buy up every mask they can find. Your local hospital can't get any. Now what?