Consider the surgeon general's (now-deleted) tweet saying “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!” [1]
The discussion here is as follows:
1. The statement that masks are ineffective at stopping coronavirus is not true.
2. Those false statements are partly to blame for America's anti-masker problem (although the lion's share of the blame lies with Trump/GOP policy)
3. One lesson we might take away from this is, when authority figures knowingly make false statements during a crisis, that squanders credibility they may need later on. Perhaps leaders in future crises should think twice before repeating this mistake.
The discussion here is as follows:
1. The statement that masks are ineffective at stopping coronavirus is not true.
2. Those false statements are partly to blame for America's anti-masker problem (although the lion's share of the blame lies with Trump/GOP policy)
3. One lesson we might take away from this is, when authority figures knowingly make false statements during a crisis, that squanders credibility they may need later on. Perhaps leaders in future crises should think twice before repeating this mistake.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-fa...