And that reduction was there to give healthcare workers a chance to not be overwhelmed as they were for a large part of the initial pandemic.
Isn't being an anti-masker the opposite of this viewpoint? Literally saying, I only care about the returns for myself, even if creates negative value for others.
It was obvious nonsense, and did not comfort me as I watched an avoidable catastrophe become, day by day, an unavoidable one; politicians caring more about pacifying the populace with platitudes than about taking measures to render SARS-CoV-2 extinct in the wild – measures which would have been several orders of magnitude cheaper than the extended pandemic lockdowns, disabilities and trauma, loss of life, and now a new disabling endemic disease we're going to have to fight the hard way, for centuries, until it can finally go the way of smallpox.
Once we had a bit more information in a rapidly evolving situation public health advice switched to recommending masks and stayed that way for years.
We cannot possibly expect public health advice to get everything right immediately during a once-in-a-century pandemic and this error should definitely not be used as a general "wow public health officials are dumb idiots or engaged in a malicious conspiracy", as this error is often used.
So you must be careful to do everything they tell you.
But do not do what they do, for they do not practice
what they preach. They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads
and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they
themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move
them.
Everything they do is done for people to see: They make
their phylacteries wide and the tassels on their
garments long; [...]