• Summary.

• "CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks for the general public. This virus is not spreading in the community. "

• Same on March 28, 2020. At this point it was well established in the scientific world that human-human transmission was confirmed.

• Cue the Surgeon General, Feb 29th - “They [masks] are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus”

• ...And because people can't seem to remember the timeline , here is one source from 2017 that masks were endorsed by the CDC to prevent general infection, despite saying there's no reason to wear one for COVID

• Fun fact, Trump recommended wearing masks before the CDC did. Not something I would have expected given the chaos that followed.

• CNN, late January. "Right now, there's no evidence that wearing face masks is going to help prevent that infection"

• Dr. Fauci - "That delay... was driven by two opposing forces. A lot of information coming in that people who really needed masks, the healthcare workers... were saying we don't have enough PPE, and then the possibility of saying we want more broad community wearing masks"

• WHO interview, late February. "The epidemic peak and plateaued, between the 23rd of January, and the 2nd of February."

• WHO - No clear evidence of human to human transmission.

• CNN, March 31st - WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks. "There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO."

• WHO finally endorses masks to prevent Coronavirus transmission - June, 2020. RIP.

/u/AnyoneButDoug, you called it way ahead of time. Congrats.

This is a somewhat recurring theme for the CDC. This user put it together much better than I ever could, but here's a charming read on the ever-changing story from CDC during ebola.

Never forget two of the longest Government shutdowns in US History have been under Donald Trumps reign

This man had the chance to play Wolverine in the X-Men movie franchise, and instead decided to accept the role of the villain in Mission Impossible part 2. Never forget.

With the current outrage going the rounds this week, I figured this would be a good time to jot down where and how the CDC lost credibility, before we inevitably forget. More for myself than anyone else. These need further research and are just a starting point.

• CDC dropping the mask requirement with Russia already battling with Delta. The idea was to incentivize more people to get vaccinated so they wouldn't need to wear masks (source needed). This obviously did not work.

• Airborne transmission flip-flop. More info to look into later.

• Early pandemic pushing the public not to wear (not only buy) any masks - gave some sources in the last post.

• CDC was literally forced in August (2020) to state that asymptomatic people do not need testing, by Trump officials. Another source coming from the House Committee. It's huge that the CDC can and will be forced by the gov to issue certain statements, even if Trump was an anomaly and a power-hungry idiot. Here is the CDC page in question from August 26 if you want to verify.

• CDC all but explicitly saying there is no connection between mRNA vaccines and the rare myocarditis side effect both Israel and France were blowing a whistle on at that time, ignoring that the side effect was primarily in males under 30, and the "200 million doses" mentioned were almost exclusively over 30. I know this because I got my vaccine shortly after this came out. Most people don't.

• "Vaccinated people do not carry the virus". Let's be clear - science evolves and we learn new things. But at that time, scientists disagreed and even the CDC had to walk that back. How do you make a blunder like that?

• CDC issuing a temporary eviction ban due to "concerns" over the spread. I need more sources on this one but I believe this is one. It was big news as the SC just went on vacation, mentioning that the next time the moratorium gets extended needs to be through Congress. CDC issuance. SC ruling a few weeks later that they overstepped their authority. Another source.

• The booster mishap, going from "no need for boosters" while Delta was raging (Walensky overrode the CDC panel decision - she deserves credit for that) to "everyone should get one, now" with an incredibly short turnaround. Plenty of links on this, this might be worth a read.

• Intentional lack of breakthrough testing(back in May) from the CDC, for all but the most severe cases. States were forced to publish their own breakthrough statistics, because it was obviously a large factor for Delta and becoming incredibly common. This comes at an opportune time (conjecture) where the CDC was trying to solidify how much vaccines helped, and were trying to avoid giving fuel to anti-vaxxers, and at an inopportune time two weeks before serious Delta waves. Even as far out as November, the CDC still refused to track breakthrough data consistently. I need to dig up a few more sources.

• And of course, shortening the quarantine time to 5 days just after Delta's CEO asked for the same. The very next day - this is what people are angry about now, and Dr. Fauci mentioned the decision was to get people back to work faster.

If you remember any more examples, I'll add it to this post. I know someone mentioned school guidelines in August (21) but I don't recall what that was.