This essay will offer grimness, as if that were avoidable, but end with optimism—because why not? The last thing we need is to wallow in complaint. Still, we do need a reckoning. The United States will pass the coronavirus test, but only after failing it. Lots of the failures will be due to incompetence, which people will forgive. Others will be due to lies, which people will not. During a crucial stretch starting in early March, Donald Trump, backed by an army of right-wing media hacks, was chief dissembler, downplaying the gravity of what we faced. But people are at least prepared for dishonesty from Trump. Less expected were all the experts and organizations that offered bad guidance as well, especially in February, when many of our self-appointed sages issued a parade of false assurances and specious arguments. As a rule, commission of such sins, if in sync with prevailing opinion, poses no threat to your status. But people are getting tired of that rule.

As we know, U.S. authorities, backed by the Centers for Disease Control, are now recommending we cover up our noses and mouths with masks, after weeks of having said the opposite. That a five-cent procedural mask should take center stage in our discussions about societal distrust is almost disappointing in its banality. But the lie was simple and the stakes were high. Our surgeon general told us, “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus.” (Thanks, Jerome Adams.) Members of Congress tweeted out statements like, “Stop wearing face masks.” (Thanks, Eric Swalwell.) “Oh, and face masks? You can pass on them,” offered Vox. (Thanks, Voxsplainers.) Other major media outlets relayed similar messages without any apparent skepticism. From the start, the motive behind the claims that masks don’t work, to conserve gear for frontline workers, was obvious. The means, deceiving the public, was depressingly familiar.

Foreign correspondents living in China in the 1950s and ’60s got used to being told one thing by Communist officials one day and another thing a day later, and they also got used to the nonchalance with which those same officials admitted to yesterday’s falsehood after the fact. If it was deemed necessary by the party to lie, then there were no grounds for guilt. Anyone who feels driven by a higher cause is prone to similar rationalizations. In an interview last week, French journalist and physician Marina Carrère d’Encausse admitted that, yes, the message to the French public about masks had been false but that it was for “une bonne cause.” The admission was more surprising than the mindset. But noble lies, rarely noble, carry a price that we’re going to see soon enough. Here are other things people are unlikely to believe: that Drug X doesn’t work for treating coronavirus, that there’s plenty of Drug X so don’t hoard it, that it’s safe to return to the office, that help is on the way so stay put, that there’s no reason to empty grocery shelves of tonic water or sugar or butter, or whatever. When you’ve lied to people, they don’t distrust just your false statements but also your true ones. We all know this. Don’t we?

That misinformation about masks that was promulgated in multiple countries wouldn’t have happened without the support of the World Health Organization, which, last I checked, is still insisting that masks aren’t necessary. I didn’t know a lot about WHO prior to February, but what I’ve learned since has told me enough about its trustworthiness. In mid-January, WHO was relaying that Chinese authorities had found “no clear evidence” of person-to-person transmission of the coronavirus, despite late-December communications from Taiwan to the opposite effect. In late January and early February, WHO was claiming that travel restrictions were counterproductive, despite the obvious reality that viruses travel via people. (In reality, Trump never restricted travel to even a fraction of the extent that he claims, but he should have.) When a Hong Kong–based interviewer asked a WHO senior adviser to weigh in on Taiwan’s response to the pandemic, the adviser seemed to avoid question. When Austria began to insist that shoppers in grocery stores wear masks to protect themselves and one another, WHO official Mike Ryan reiterated, “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any particular benefit.” No evidence?