> I think it depends on the definition of rhetoric you are using, and how you've framed the argument. Not everyone who said "they're lying to you" also said "they're going to take everything from you"

> I think the point of this article is that official health channels _were_ being dishonest - through their use of rhetoric, lying by omission, etc.

What I meant by "they're lying to you and going to take everything from you" rhetoric was more about the litany of TV commercials and certain TV hosts that seem to pepper their sentences with very emotionally loaded words that imply evil intent or almost a malicious indifference to not just actions by the CDC but by so many institutions in society. I think I just feel so frustrated and overwhelmed by a constant hum I hear of "the world is out to get you."

That being said, I strongly agree with you that many parts of the US Federal Government, including parts of the CDC, communicated in a way that would lead people to distrust them, either through lies of omission, flat out lies, false certainty, or conflicted messaging across the people and organizations. I agree with the article in that, especially about the masks, many people in the government did not openly express the uncertainty of the situation and trust in the citizens to not only to be kind to each other but to have the ability to adapt and maintain solidarity throughout. I much more appreciated the way that, from what I remember, the New Zealand Prime Minister asked citizens for their help, instead of just telling them what to do or not do (I could be wrong on that, can't find the video at the moment).

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I appreciate your point about the trolley games. In looking back, maybe one of the reasons I didn't lose a lot of trust in the CDC was because I had other sources around the world, namely a friend in Hong Kong, who was strongly warning me about it and giving me instructions on how to stay safe, from masking, to disrobing in the garage, to washing the grocery bags, etc. I recognize not everyone was as lucky and some people have suffered grave consequences as a result.

Regarding those examples, I think I remember the CDC communicating those differently. Perhaps I'm misremembering, I don't think I ever got the impression they never called it a pandemic. Maybe in Jan and Feb, but I think once the WHO declared it a pandemic and around the time the NBA and NCAA basketball closed, I'm pretty sure the CDC was also calling it a pandemic.

I just found this article[1] from Feb 26, 2020, entitled "Covid-19: Why won't the WHO officially declare a coronavirus pandemic?", in which it says:

> The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the covid-19 virus already meets two of its three criteria for a pandemic: it spreads between people, and it kills.

> The third is that it has to spread worldwide. The virus is now in 38 countries – and counting – on nearly all continents, and those are just the ones we know about. How much more worldwide does it need to be?

It makes me wonder whether the CDC itself even has the authority to declare a pandemic, since it doesn't operate worldwide.

I also found an article[2] talking about how a meme was going around Facebook saying the CDC removed the word "pandemic" from its site, which I don't remember happening and which the article seems to strongly dispute with many links:

> We rate this claim as FALSE. The meme is wrong. The COVID-19 outbreak, though often described that way, is still a pandemic and has been since March 11.

Regarding the wearing of masks, yes, I mostly agree that even if these orgs didn't outright say "you don't need masks" (as the Surgeon General did in a tweet)[3], they still advised them only for people who were working in hospitals, taking care of people who were sick, or who were experiencing symptoms themselves. At least up until April 3, 2020, when the CDC recommended all people wear masks in public[4] (although Trump said he would not).

> What they said: the public doesn't need masks for this pandemic

> The game: we need to make sure hospitals have masks

So yes, I think from the end of February (maybe earlier) until beginning of April, the CDC didn't recommend wearing masks for the general public and those who were in the hard hit areas at those times could have been really hurt and/or killed as a result and I wish they had communicated more clearly and openly about this. I don't necessarily agree the game was explicitly "we know the masks work for the public and yet we are worried people will hoard them so we will lie to them and tell them only hospital workers need them." I think it was a concern they would run out of PPE for hospital workers and I also think they were unsure how well masks would help the general public, mostly because they didn't seem to know covid-19 transmitted as asymptomatically as it has.

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I guess I just often see trust as a choice. Do I believe that they knew with strong certainty that a mask would help me and chose to lie to me because they didn't trust that I would not hoard them? Do I believe that they were quite scared about hospitals not having PPE, confident that the virus only spread through symptomatic infection, and unsure if masks would actually help people without symptoms?

At the end of the day, I'll almost never certainly know. I guess I just choose to believe the latter because it helps me rebuild trust in them and feel a little safer going forward.

[1]: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2235342-covid-19-why-wo...

[2]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/09/18/fac...

[3]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200303020926/https://twitter.c...

[4]: https://www.fastcompany.com/90612519/seriously-people-stop-b...