Remember when we were still debating about whether wearing a mask was a good thing or not?

It was not that long ago. Back at the end of February, the head of the CDC, Robert Redfield,

he got in front of Congress, and he sounded so confident when a member asked whether healthy people should be covering their faces.

He gave a flat-out no.

I do see people feeling a need to go by mask.

You can hear that he sounds a little annoyed to answer this question.

And it really does displease me to find people going out.

There's no role for these masks in the community.

When Redfield came back to Washington to testify some more over the past few weeks,

he's been wearing a mask.

So of all the politicians sitting across from him. One was even

wearing a plexiglass face shield. And I should say, this is a good thing. Learning about a novel

virus means constantly reassessing what you know and what you don't.

But in the last week, the change of heart about masks, it's been especially profound for Republicans.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a statement in support of masks.

So did Vice President Mike Pence?

It's everyone but Donald Trump.

And they're making excuses for Donald Trump.

Everyone around Donald Trump is explaining why he's the only one not wearing a mask.

Jordan Weissman is a writer here at Slate.

Covers the economy.

Even Steve Mnuchin recently at a press conference got up without a mask and explained, without prompting, explained why he wasn't wearing one. Director Kudlow and I are not wearing masks up here because we've both been tested this morning. Right. He was like, I was just tested. I'm cool. He was like, this morning I was tested. So that's why I'm not wearing one. But in general, all of you should be wearing masks. So they're very conscientious of it right now. You know, we're not back at square one in this country, but we're seeing record numbers of cases again. And, you know, wave, this second, what is this second wave? Is it the one and a half wave? I don't even know. This new wave. I don't even know if there are waves anymore. They're just... We're just underwater.

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