[u32480932048]

Yeah, yeah, but N95s didn't come into play until much later.

The earliest piece of advice was "please don't go out and buy all the masks because the hospitals need them (and the common ones won't protect you anyway because the virus is too small - you'll need an N95, which are expensive and also needed in hospitals)"

A little later, the advice was "on second thought, if we all cover our mouths and noses, we'll probably slow the spread by virtue of not coughing and sneezing all over everything. Save the N95s for the doctors, and cover your face with I-dont-care-what".

The opprobrium cited the earlier advice, with a "wait, you said these were useless, now we have to wear them?"

Instead of addressing this most simple point of confusion, it jumped to "MASKS WORK! SHUT UP AND PUT YOUR MASK ON, IDIOT!"

By the time production ramped up and we had N95s to go around, the conversation was already stupid beyond repair.

Again, it was never The Science™, but the piss-poor communication of it - and by people who should have known better.