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Weeks ago the CDC lied, saying that masks aren't effective and that the general public shouldn't wear them. They did this ostensibly to keep the existing mask s

Weeks ago the CDC lied, saying that masks aren't effective and that the general public shouldn't wear them. They did this ostensibly to keep the existing mask supply available only to medical workers. Needless to say, if they're ineffective for the general public, they're ineffective for doctors and nurses. And so people saw through the bullshit

didibus 7y ago
I remember reading the CDC website, and I don't remember them saying that. Their Jan 8 publication says: > CDC currently recommends a cautious approach to symptomatic patients with a history of travel to Wuhan City. Such patients should be asked to wear a surgical mask as soon as they are identified and be evaluated in a private room with the door closed. Personnel entering the room to evaluate the patient should use contact precautions and wear an N95 disposable facepiece respirator - https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/HAN00424.asp https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/HAN00424.asp And on Feb 21 their FAQ said: > Q: Does CDC recommend the use of facemask in the community to prevent COVID-19? > A: CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. You should only wear a mask if a healthcare professional recommends it. A facemask should be used by people who have COVID-19 and are showing symptoms. This is to protect others from the risk of getting infected. The use of facemasks also is crucial for health workers and other people who are taking care of someone infected with COVID-19 in close settings (at home or in a health care facility). - https://wayback.archive-it.org/13529/20200221195555/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html https://wayback.archive-it.org/13529/20200221195555/https://... So I'm not seeing where they ever said they were not effective. It says that if you are sick or showing symptoms you should wear a mask, but that they don't advise the general public to wear a mask because they are crucial to health care workers. To me this sounds like very good advice.
- djmips 7y ago
  Right but if you can't tell if you're infected then you should always wear a mask. I mean how much more additional trouble is that then making everyone stay home.
  - didibus 7y ago
    That there wasn't enough masks? To be clear, I'm just saying the CDC never lied. You can disagree with its recommendation to try and save the masks supplies for Health Workers and people showing symptoms, but it never said that masks are ineffective. If anything, it might have said that it's still unclear how effective they are, but even then, it clearly took the cautionary approach. If you read to the contrary, that was probably just a poor news source spewing misinformation. Or at least, I cannot find where on the official CDC channels they would have lied.
ramshorns 7y ago
> Needless to say, if they're ineffective for the general public, they're ineffective for doctors and nurses. This isn't necessarily true. Doctors and nurses could have training on how to use masks, whereas most people will touch their faces more with them on.
- kaikai 7y ago
  Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Wearing a mask correctly, in a way that gets a proper seal, is something health care pros are trained to do and most people aren’t. If you’re constantly touching the mask (which has been concentrating particles in the air) and then touching other parts of your face, the mask is less effective.
- Larrikin 7y ago
  When you know touching your face is the worst thing you can do this has personally been a proven lie. I assume if there is science behind a study that tracks people through out the day and shows people touch their face more often, that they were not told to avoid touching their face. I think to touch an eye brow or my hair and my face subtly moves and I feel the mask on my face and realize that I should not come anywhere close to my face. People are not stupid, they just need to be educated.
octodog 7y ago
This is seriously and dangerously wrong information. Surgical masks are particularly helpful in stopping _infected_ people from spreading the disease. New information and data on asymptomatic spreaders means that the CDC (and many other Western health authorities) are considering changing their advice. The idea is that everyone must assume they are an asymptomatic spreader. Additionally, surgical masks aren't the only PPE that medical workers use to protect themselves. Furthermore, hospitals and medical workers need surgical masks for many different non-coronavirus activities. See here for more info:https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/824560471/should-we-all-be-wearing-masks-in-public-health-experts-revisit-the-question https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/8245604...
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  No, what you just said is seriously wrong. The CDC even coauthored a paper that found during the SARS-1 outbreak that among contacts of known cases, those untrained people that regularly wore surgical masks had a 70% reduced risk of contracting SARS. 60% for those that wore them intermittently. And in fact, research suggests that masks are actually MORE protective for the people wearing them. Note the following points, with sources (The context is a bit off because I did this research in response to another question, but the points are still pretty much relevant here): 1. Regular old surgical masks (not N95 respirators), when worn by the public without training, had a strong protective effect for the people wearing them during the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak. They reduced the risk of infection by ~70%. (Source: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/2/03-0730_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/2/03-0730_article) 2. Despite being very different in their ability to actually filter out fine particles, N95 respirators and surgical masks actually show no significant difference in their ability to prevent diagnosed respiratory infections including influenza, when worn by healthcare workers according to two large meta-studies. Though both had a protective effect over no mask. (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/) (2nd source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779801/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779801/) 3. Improvised, homemade masks have only a marginally lower filtration efficiency than surgical masks (which we established are about as effective as an N95 respirator anyway). (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/) (2nd source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_the_Efficacy_of_Homemade_Masks_Would_They_Protect_in_an_Influenza_Pandemic https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...) 4. There is evidence in the studies linked in item 2 that hand hygiene alone did not demonstrate much of a protective effect (for civilians caring for a sick family member) against transmission of influenza compared to use of any type of mask. 5. When infected people wear a mask, it helps reduce the amount of viral shedding which occurs, presumably making them less likely to infect others. (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591312/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591312/)

didibus 7y ago

I remember reading the CDC website, and I don't remember them saying that. Their Jan 8 publication says: > CDC currently recommends a cautious approach to symptomatic patients with a history of travel to Wuhan City. Such patients should be asked to wear a surgical mask as soon as they are identified and be evaluated in a private room with the door closed. Personnel entering the room to evaluate the patient should use contact precautions and wear an N95 disposable facepiece respirator - https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/HAN00424.asp https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/HAN00424.asp And on Feb 21 their FAQ said: > Q: Does CDC recommend the use of facemask in the community to prevent COVID-19? > A: CDC does not recommend that people who are well wear a facemask to protect themselves from respiratory illnesses, including COVID-19. You should only wear a mask if a healthcare professional recommends it. A facemask should be used by people who have COVID-19 and are showing symptoms. This is to protect others from the risk of getting infected. The use of facemasks also is crucial for health workers and other people who are taking care of someone infected with COVID-19 in close settings (at home or in a health care facility). - https://wayback.archive-it.org/13529/20200221195555/https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html https://wayback.archive-it.org/13529/20200221195555/https://... So I'm not seeing where they ever said they were not effective. It says that if you are sick or showing symptoms you should wear a mask, but that they don't advise the general public to wear a mask because they are crucial to health care workers. To me this sounds like very good advice.

djmips 7y ago
Right but if you can't tell if you're infected then you should always wear a mask. I mean how much more additional trouble is that then making everyone stay home.
- didibus 7y ago
  That there wasn't enough masks? To be clear, I'm just saying the CDC never lied. You can disagree with its recommendation to try and save the masks supplies for Health Workers and people showing symptoms, but it never said that masks are ineffective. If anything, it might have said that it's still unclear how effective they are, but even then, it clearly took the cautionary approach. If you read to the contrary, that was probably just a poor news source spewing misinformation. Or at least, I cannot find where on the official CDC channels they would have lied.

ramshorns 7y ago

> Needless to say, if they're ineffective for the general public, they're ineffective for doctors and nurses. This isn't necessarily true. Doctors and nurses could have training on how to use masks, whereas most people will touch their faces more with them on.

kaikai 7y ago
Not sure why this is getting downvoted. Wearing a mask correctly, in a way that gets a proper seal, is something health care pros are trained to do and most people aren’t. If you’re constantly touching the mask (which has been concentrating particles in the air) and then touching other parts of your face, the mask is less effective.
Larrikin 7y ago
When you know touching your face is the worst thing you can do this has personally been a proven lie. I assume if there is science behind a study that tracks people through out the day and shows people touch their face more often, that they were not told to avoid touching their face. I think to touch an eye brow or my hair and my face subtly moves and I feel the mask on my face and realize that I should not come anywhere close to my face. People are not stupid, they just need to be educated.

octodog 7y ago

This is seriously and dangerously wrong information. Surgical masks are particularly helpful in stopping _infected_ people from spreading the disease. New information and data on asymptomatic spreaders means that the CDC (and many other Western health authorities) are considering changing their advice. The idea is that everyone must assume they are an asymptomatic spreader. Additionally, surgical masks aren't the only PPE that medical workers use to protect themselves. Furthermore, hospitals and medical workers need surgical masks for many different non-coronavirus activities. See here for more info:https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/824560471/should-we-all-be-wearing-masks-in-public-health-experts-revisit-the-question https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/31/8245604...

Enginerrrd 7y ago
No, what you just said is seriously wrong. The CDC even coauthored a paper that found during the SARS-1 outbreak that among contacts of known cases, those untrained people that regularly wore surgical masks had a 70% reduced risk of contracting SARS. 60% for those that wore them intermittently. And in fact, research suggests that masks are actually MORE protective for the people wearing them. Note the following points, with sources (The context is a bit off because I did this research in response to another question, but the points are still pretty much relevant here): 1. Regular old surgical masks (not N95 respirators), when worn by the public without training, had a strong protective effect for the people wearing them during the SARS-CoV-1 outbreak. They reduced the risk of infection by ~70%. (Source: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/2/03-0730_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/2/03-0730_article) 2. Despite being very different in their ability to actually filter out fine particles, N95 respirators and surgical masks actually show no significant difference in their ability to prevent diagnosed respiratory infections including influenza, when worn by healthcare workers according to two large meta-studies. Though both had a protective effect over no mask. (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868605/) (2nd source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779801/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5779801/) 3. Improvised, homemade masks have only a marginally lower filtration efficiency than surgical masks (which we established are about as effective as an N95 respirator anyway). (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2440799/) (2nd source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_the_Efficacy_of_Homemade_Masks_Would_They_Protect_in_an_Influenza_Pandemic https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...) 4. There is evidence in the studies linked in item 2 that hand hygiene alone did not demonstrate much of a protective effect (for civilians caring for a sick family member) against transmission of influenza compared to use of any type of mask. 5. When infected people wear a mask, it helps reduce the amount of viral shedding which occurs, presumably making them less likely to infect others. (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591312/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3591312/)