How often is "conventional wisdom" actually just "incorrect assumption"

Why are we still arguing about masks? All this time later, their utility is in doubt.

In the past few weeks, the conventional wisdom about COVID seems to have been upended.

Early in the pandemic, several mainstream news outlets dismissed theories that COVID came from a Chinese lab. But recently The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported that the Department of Energy reversed its prior judgment by announcing that the coronavirus probably did emerge from a laboratory. The FBI shares that assessment.

What’s more, for the past three years, many scientists and writers—including me!—have reported that masks are effective at reducing the transmission of COVID. But last month, the lead author of a comprehensive analysis of masks boldly and unequivocally asserted that “there’s no evidence that many of these things make any difference.”

That settles things: The elites got everything perfectly backwards; the lab-leak conspiracy theory was true, and the mask mandates were a fraud!

Now some of this is hyperbole. I am pretty sure that the author does not see mask mandates as "a fraud". But the reality remains that the "conspiracy theory" about the origins of Covid was never really a "conspiracy" at all. Rather it was the most logical conclusion to draw based on everything we knew at the time. We generally have not "learned" anything new as opinions have changed, we just seem to be more accepting of the evidence that existed all along.

Unfortunately this is a pattern lately, which has been enabled by the ability and willingness of our Government to censor information that they deem counter to the current "narrative". When you couple that power with a media that is more than willing to parrot said "narrative" and ignore any and all evidence contrary to that "narrative" then you have effective government thought control.

This goes back a while. Most obviously with the Russian collusion hoax or the Trump withheld aid from Ukraine hoax that led to undermining the entire Trump Presidency. But we can also look at Trump called white supremacist "good people" hoax, the drink bleach to cure covid hoax as well as more media inspired hoaxes. Oh and the Hunter Biden Laptop was Russian disinformation hoax was another great one later pushed by the Government and parroted by the media.

I mean we have seen all sorts of "narratives" provided by our Government or the media that had little or no basis in realty. Many of those (Russian collusion, Hunter Biden laptop) were later confirmed by pretty much everyone to be hoaxes. Now we are also debunking the idea that Covid couldn't have possibly been a lab leak, or that masks were the end all be all to preventing the spread of Covid. At what point do people on the left actually become somewhat skeptical of the Government and media? How many narrative hoaxes do they have to see washed away by facts before they start to doubt?