The CDC changed its position. WHO has been consistent.

Their first recommendation was "no masks," but it's clear that they were just trying to protect the supply for health professionals from the hysteria that overtook the toilet paper industry. Remember the excuses? "Only doctors know how to use them." "They only work one way" (okay - so how about we turn them around?). "You must be clean-shaven." "They don't work anyway."

And then someone said "let's make 'em at home," and the CDC had the solution to its problem: have people wear something - anything - and the health care industry will be saved. But the prices rose in the meantime, and surgical masks that cost me $3 for a box of 25 several years ago are now doled out as boxes of 10 for $15 or $20.

The mask has become the sign of Virtue Signaling. Are they effective? Who cares? Did wearing an AIDS ribbon in an parade solve anything? Yet Kramer (on Seinfeld) was pilloried for refusing to wear the ribbon.

Meanwhile, America wonders how we could have been hoodwinked in the 1950s into believing Duck & Cover would work for anything.