MachineConfigPool degraded: content mismatch for file "/etc/containers/policy.json"

Issue

• When upgrading OpenShift Container Platform 4.x, the upgrade can stall waiting for the machine-config operator to return to an Available state, while a node is kept under Degraded status.
• The following error appears when running oc describe clusteroperator/machine-config:

Operator: 'machine-config'
    Issue: Degraded
    Reason: RequiredPoolsFailed
    Message: Failed to resync 4.10.43 because: timed out waiting for the condition during syncRequiredMachineConfigPools: error pool worker is not ready, retrying. Status: (pool degraded: true total: 8, ready 3, updated: 3, unavailable: 5)

• The following error appears when running oc get mcp worker -o yaml:

pool is degraded because nodes fail with "5 nodes are reporting degraded status on sync": "Node worker5.ocp4.example.com is reporting: \"content  mismatch for file \\\"/etc/containers/policy.json"