But people were debating about all these things, war on Germany was not declared for a very long time, war in Vietnam was abandoned not sure if consider that good or bad.
The initial stance on masks was to lie that they are useless so that people don't buy masks that were needed for doctors, so if CDC was to stay on message it would stay on that message not the one that masks are good.
Your proposed approach of a few people making decisions and the rest not even being allowed to debate, can not create trust, it can only create USSR or North Korea.
I’m not sure how the discussion got to this place. Please allow me a reset. My point is only that ideally people in charge of policy should be upfront that they’re making decisions based on imperfect information, and it should not require people “believing in science”. This would have the effect leaving the science, with all its messiness, to scientists, and will be better for everyone involved.
A sidenote on CDC, the null hypothesis is institutional inertia: there were no mask mandates during many recent pandemics so CDC was simply following the long standing policy. This doesn’t require lying: if you believe that a policy is useless and will actively harm supply of masks it makes sense to come out strongly against it. I’m open to evidence to the contrary though.
The initial stance on masks was to lie that they are useless so that people don't buy masks that were needed for doctors, so if CDC was to stay on message it would stay on that message not the one that masks are good.
Your proposed approach of a few people making decisions and the rest not even being allowed to debate, can not create trust, it can only create USSR or North Korea.