If we are doing gut feelings, I have to say I also saw the worst of humanity. I saw a political party politicize masks. This put my family in danger for political gain and I don’t see myself forgetting that anytime soon.
As to specifics, what would you have done differently?
0.https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/face-masks-coronavirus...
My take on official gov statements is that they cannot always be taken a face value. It would be naive to do so, especially in a time of crisis. If I recall correctly, this was at a time when masks were in very short supply and I took this as misinformation to keep medical providers from having to re-use masks.
However, there were all kinds of missteps during the pandemic and keeping the public “calm” seemed to be a major priority for the previous administration.[0] This could have been part of that. But I readily admit that this is all speculation.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/17/white-house-abandoned-plan-t...
Which has to be one of the biggest ever public health blunders. Now people are thinking “what are they lying about now?” They have severely harmed their credibility in everything now and made it 1000X harder to combat misinformation. No one can read and understand enough data about everything to avoid having to rely on experts a lot and our public health experts either made a huge PR blunder by mouthing off publicly when they didn’t have enough data or they’re liars about their initial opposition to masks or their subsequent support for them. Neither scenario helps the public to believe them about vaccines etc. In a civilized age they would all resign in disgrace.