It wasn’t simple. Next time, it will be important to be transparent about the tradeoffs of different types of material, and any need to route masks towards certain sectors being temporary. The strategy to feed the public a series of simplified messages was harmful from a public health perspective and sets the next pandemic response up for unnecessary challenges. All this is compatible with mandatory mask wearing, too.

The rhetoric from the public about masks being simple and obvious had the same problem on the friends-and-family scale.