I agree. Wanting to keep supplies to healthcare workers wouldn't have even been all that hard. Thanks to the horrific amount of consolidation in retail they could have gone to only a handful of major players like amazon and walmart and said "Please pull these masks off of shelves and help us save them for healthcare workers" and that would have kept them out of the hands of the vast majority of the population. A few might have tried ordering them from overseas or spent hours trying to get them from random places online hoping that they were getting the real thing and not overpriced knockoffs, but most people were not going to do that, especially if the reasons they shouldn't were communicated to them.
Claiming the masks are useless to the public but critical for healthcare workers made no sense. I mean, I think most people would accept that putting just about anything in front of your gaping virus-spewing face holes would have some benefit. Health agencies have pushed for things like the vampire cough/sneeze for ages to reduce the spread of all kinds of things, although the crook of your elbow is hardly a panacea.
I think either way we'd have ended up with a bunch of dumb or selfish people who refused to put a mask on, and there were already plenty of people distrustful of the CDC and WHO but they sure didn't do themselves any favors.
At the beginning of the pandemic, there were a lot of problems that required "thinking outside the box," and the US wasn't up to the task. China banned mask exports for a time. Large N95 exports might still require a license in Korea. The Korean government politely asked Samsung in January 2020 to import a few tons of meltblown plastic, and in March instituted export limits and mask rations to secure the domestic mask supply. (The plastic was then allocated from Samsung to mask manufacturers, and when the manufacturers tried to flex their newfound market power the government threatened to take them over.)
Meanwhile the US continued to allow foreign entities to hoard and export masks and meltblown plastic, and didn't make any effort to secure or guarantee domestic production. It would have been so easy for the national stockpile to place an order for 5~10 billion masks, and then set themselves up as an additional link in the supply chain to hospitals which buffers against fluctuations. I imagine they were limited by their legal framework and budget.
I am not sure if going to e.g. Amazon or Walmart would have worked. If this is timed incorrectly it is easy to cause needless mob hoarding -- see toilet paper de-buckle...
That said yes blatant misinformation backfired royally. I recall at the point already people were calling bullshit and ignoring the "do not need masks" guideline.
This did not happen only in the U.S. or just due to the masks. E.g. the handling of Astrazeneca and other vaccination complications have instilled fear and also a sense of mistrust.
I think there would be a few people not wearing masks or not vaccinated but the percentage would be much lower -- low enough that we can progress forward. The moment masks and vaccinations became a political tool in the U.S. and there was no political solidarity it was game over. Couple that with lying and can you really blame people not trusting the government?
> Thanks to the horrific amount of consolidation in retail they could have gone to only a handful of major players like amazon and walmart and said "Please pull these masks off of shelves and help us save them for healthcare workers" and that would have kept them out of the hands of the vast majority of the population.
Early on, Amazon and other online medical supply stores actually did this themselves. Restricted surgical masks to medical professionals only.
Claiming the masks are useless to the public but critical for healthcare workers made no sense. I mean, I think most people would accept that putting just about anything in front of your gaping virus-spewing face holes would have some benefit. Health agencies have pushed for things like the vampire cough/sneeze for ages to reduce the spread of all kinds of things, although the crook of your elbow is hardly a panacea.
I think either way we'd have ended up with a bunch of dumb or selfish people who refused to put a mask on, and there were already plenty of people distrustful of the CDC and WHO but they sure didn't do themselves any favors.