Last week, mere weeks after the surgeon general discouraged Americans from buying masks to protect from COVID-19 transmission, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started recommending that Americans wear masks to help slow the spread of coronavirus.
It was the type of about-face that has characterized the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, one that has been marked by mixed messaging, the promotion of dangerous misinformation, and a bumbling incompetence more suggestive of a Benny Hill sketch than a federal government task force. Above all else, it prompted people to flock online by the millions to comb through a now-limited supply of masks — and garment manufacturers have been all too happy to meet demand.
