This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, April 9, 2020. I'm Caleb Brown.

The advice from federal officials about how to minimize the risk of coronavirus

infection has changed radically in just the last few weeks. What drove that initial perhaps

supremely damaging advice was a noble lie. Cato's Alex Narastis says noble lies are still lies. When they come from purported experts,

they damage the trust that we all ought to have and people who possess expertise.

Shortly after it became widely believed in the United States that this novel

coronavirus that causes COVID-19 was going to be a substantial problem, face masks across the internet sold out and the Surgeon General took to

Twitter and said don't wear face masks they're not that helpful we need to reserve them for

medical personnel and since then that advice has really fallen by the wayside, but there was almost three, four, almost four weeks when the official advice that Americans were getting from the government was very different

than what it is right now.

That's right, they reversed their initial recommendation. Now they are saying you should wear a face mask.

They're sort of saying you know wear a cloth face mask, maybe like a pandana or

something else that you make,

preserve the N95 masks, these other more serious medical masks for medical personnel, but do cover your face, it does help.

And that's quite a reversal.

Jerome Adams and February said, don't buy face masks.

The CDC for several years has had a recommendation on their website to not buy face masks

and recently CDC officials have gone on to say not to but the

CDC reversed course as well and said no you should cover your face when

you're a Republican walking around it does reduce the transmission of COVID-19 makes it

less likely that the virus will spread to other people makes it less likely that you will

get the virus. So it does help, but it's a tremendous reversal in a short period of time for a position that frankly seemed ridiculous to a lot of people, the notion that you shouldn't wear a mask that don't help, to now one that does make a lot of sense.

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