Science will set you free......hahahaha......I've seen the CDC flip-flop so many times in the past 9 months it's almost too comical......
Perhaps a bit of explanation is in order.
In chemistry, physics, and engineering, the scientific process is fairly straightforward, because iron atoms behave pretty much the same, no matter where they come from. When it comes to doing science in medicine and in human behavior it's far more difficult for several reasons. Two important ones: human beings are different from one another, and study of disease transmission by its very nature takes time.
In the initial stages of COVID-19, there simply wasn't much data on which to base precautions and treatment. As more people got the disease, we learned more about it. Example: early on, it was not known just how, and how easily, the virus could be transmitted. Recommendations to wash groceries, especially produce, were prudent. But after a great deal of work it was found that viral transmission from handling grocery packaging was unlikely; the virus *could* live for some time on a tin can, but it wasn't very likely, and it takes a large number of transmitted viruses to actually cause the disease. The likelihood of having enough viruses transmitted from one person, to a can of beans, then to infect another person, is quite low. So current knowledge is, go ahead and wash your groceries if you like, but wearing a mask properly and keeping away from other people is far more important, because transmission by the cloud of microscopic droplets exhaled with every breath is far, far more likely to infect you than viruses which may or may not be on that can of beans.
In some ways it's remarkable that the CDC and the pharmaceutical industry has been able to come up with (possible) vaccines so quickly. Look how long we've been working on AIDS and on hemorragic diseases such as Ebola.
Good science takes time, and there are a lot of dead ends before useful answers are obtained.
