Who do you believe then? It's not so much gov't one believes as it is the scientists one believes. Thus we believe govt's that direct based on science vs govt's based on tv show hosts and pundits. People who've been studying pandemics for 30 years have a sense of what works and what doesn't work. And at least in USA they've been right outside of a few stutter starts as people were trying to figure this virus out as it was a novel -i.e., never seen before - virus. Thus we learned in fact masks ARE helpful, and that the virus does not stick to surfaces as long as the scientists once feared. That's how science works - keep gathering data and make decisions based upon the best data. Europe and Canada and Australia took one approach, many USA governors and ultimately president another. The results of the different approaches are clear.