This is not the same thing as goalpost shifting. This is just the result of changes to best-effort predictions based on information in an evolving situation. These changes often directly contradict each other as new evidence shows them to be false. A goalpost shift is usually by someone who ignores evidence that disproves their theory, and moves on to something else as a tactic for distraction and/or self-delusion. They change the subject but never address the item that they were proved wrong about.
No. That's lying. Moving the goal posts does not require lying, in fact in rarely includes it. It only requires that you change your argument when you're disproved.
At the start of the pandemic there was not much information on the effectiveness of public mask wearing to stop disease. It had been studied a tiny bit based on SE asian mask wearing cultures and the studies from memory were pretty inconclusive. We got much more and much better data when the pandemic began.
I'm not an expert and you should check these facts yourself, but my personal experience was that I investigated this after a trip to Japan many years before the pandemic began. I wondered why western culture did not have a similar mask wearing etiquette and my conclusion on the efficacy was that the evidence for it actually making a difference was sparse and weak.
EDIT: I may have misunderstood your emphasis. I took it to be on the time, as in you were saying that we knew beforehand that masks worked. I see this might not be correct. If you are saying that the evidence is still not good, you may be correct, but I think there is enough early evidence and plausible mechanism of action to assume that the right mask in the right setting is effective. I accept that single layer cloth masks might not do much.
There’s possible a lot of nuance there, that his short comment lacks (and probably leading to downvotes). There were several pre-pandemic studies that suggested masks would be harmful or didn’t show an effect. Then, state-by-state comparisons of laws in the US also show very little correlation. So if the emphasis was on (still) lacking retrospective evidence, that seems a fair complaint. Very recently, there’s a preprint article by a research group that looked back at the existing studies, and showed that many of them were too underpowered to be even capable of demonstrating the expected benefits. It has a great graph of this (https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19/comments/pxet7q/unmasking_t...)
So—in contrast to the vaccine, where the data was gathered before giving authorization was given last year—it seems that mask mandates may have been just hopeful trials that assumed there wasn’t long-term problems associated with masks, well in advance of actually having relevant data. And, in further comparison, we also have drugs like HCQ, which were pushed ahead of the data—and continue to be advocate despite continued lack of evidence in large trials. So it feels unclear that data ever mattered as much as being seen doing something? I’m saddened by it all.
An optimisitic interpretation is that mask wearing looked to have a plausible mechanism for benefit, and so as the situation ran ahead of the data, the public health officials probably made a best effort guess that mask wearing will probably help and so made the recommendation. Not all public policy can be 100% informed by data 100% of the time. I like to think that this carried more weight in the decision than just wanting to appear to do something, though I am sure that also played some role.
Thankfully most evidence-respecting organizations including governments have taken the position that it is very unlikely that HCL is of any benefit as the data has become better. Its really only fringe groups who are pushing that one hard still and even many of those have moved on to ivermectin.
They work better at containing the spread of the virus than not wearing masks. Social distancing and some indoor restricts along with masks work fairly well. Vaccinations are even better.
