5 ms·

Lots of people need to be fired once this is over. This has been known for a long time. There is no excuse for it that stacks up except incompetence. You can ar

by erentz 7y ago

Lots of people need to be fired once this is over. This has been known for a long time. There is no excuse for it that stacks up except incompetence. You can argue about funding but being honest and factual is free.

shawnz 7y ago
> This has been known for a long time. Is that true? I don't want to be inflammatory here but as far as I've seen there isn't much research to show that laypeople's use of masks is effective and there have even been some possible mechanisms suggested that could even make it worse than wearing no mask. And furthermore I don't think that just because healthcare workers are recommended to wear masks that makes it "obvious" that they would be effective for laypeople too. Healthcare workers have full sets of PPE and also strict procedures and facilities for using them/putting them on/taking them off/etc that could potentially nullify the usefulness of that PPE if not followed. If there really is research to show otherwise then I would be very curious to see it. Most of what I've seen so far specifically focuses on their use by healthcare workers. EDIT: One promising datapoint for the pro-mask camp is that infection rates do seem to be slowing down in the Czech republic since making mask-wearing mandatory there. For a while there didn't seem to be any change but looking at the data again today, there does seem to be a decrease.
- mantap 7y ago
  It's blindingly obvious. We've known that people with only subclinical symptoms (such as cough) spread this since very early on. People were told to cough into their elbow. We also know that almost nobody coughs into their elbow, even some public health officials have been caught on camera at press conferences coughing into their hands[1]. A cloth mask is surely better than coughing into your hand or worse into the open air. [1] see this video https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-medical-officer-coughs-while-advising-on-shaking-hands-11950219 https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-medical-officer-cough...
  - shawnz 7y ago
    Lots of people thought it was obvious that sodium intake caused hypertension, or cholesterol intake caused heart disease. Both ideas were since discredited. I am weary about calling anything in science or medicine "obvious", especially in a time of panic like this
    - meowface 7y ago
      Do you not see how terrible of an analogy that is?
      - shawnz 7y ago
        No? The point is that there were "obvious" mechanisms for why it should be true, but then non-obvious mechanisms which ended up making it false. Without data we can't know the impact of those non-obvious mechanisms.
        meowface 7y ago
        Yes, there is some truth to that, but there are different forms of obvious. The effects a food or drug may have on the body after being ingested are never truly obvious. The internal workings of the body of an animal are extremely, extremely complex; there are so many factors involved. This is why there's never been any sort of consensus on nutrition. Meanwhile, if someone were to say "it's obvious that wearing nitrile gloves and properly disposing of them reduces the chance of viruses coming into contact with your bare hands", true, this is not 100% obvious. There are potential failure modes here, there could be some unknown unknowns. But in general, this seems pretty obvious. We've been using gloves for these purposes for millennia. We have no reason to think they're ineffective at preventing harmful particles from touching your bare hands. The same is true of a face mask. If a virus is likely to infect you by entering your nose or mouth, then covering your nose and mouth is likely to reduce the chance of infection from the virus. This has again been known for millennia. It's the reason why Asian countries have been wearing face masks since the start of the COVID-19 news. It's why every national and global health organization is now advising that people should start wearing masks. And it's evidence that the Surgeon General of the United States very likely knowingly lied to the US public, possibly causing unnecessary deaths.
- scotty79 7y ago
  Countries that managed to control the epidemic so far all wear masks.
meowface 7y ago
I think this is going to be a "thing" in future books. A massive blunder on a historical scale that gets talked about over and over as a "what the fuck were they thinking?" moment. Maybe even worse than "Saddam has WMDs" if empirical evidence can show how many deaths it caused. It may take some time, but I think people will be held accountable. I think there should be prosecutions if it can be shown any of them knowingly lied, because in that case they would have intentionally caused deaths through the spreading of disinformation. Incredible that experts had to combat deadly disinformation or misinformation from the CDC, WHO, and US Surgeon General. It's as sickening as COVID-19 itself. We're really still living in the Dark Ages.
- sytse 7y ago
  https://www.cato.org/blog/against-noble-lie-covid-19-edition https://www.cato.org/blog/against-noble-lie-covid-19-edition "Research shows that during disasters, people can show strikingly altruistic behavior, but interventions by authorities can backfire if they fuel mistrust or treat the public as an adversary rather than people who will step up if treated with respect. Given that even homemade masks may work better than no masks, wearing them might be something to direct people to do while they stay at home more, as we all should."
  - meowface 7y ago
    Exactly. All they had to do was send the full, nuanced message rather than treat the public like toddlers who need to be lied to and told fanciful tales in order to be kept in line. They may have directly killed people with this "noble lie". It's truly disgraceful.
  - interestica 7y ago
    You should point out that your quote is a quote from an entirely different article and not a direct statement from the piece you linked to (though it is quoted).
m0zg 7y ago
In the last few years, the CDC was fighting "obesity epidemic", "gun violence epidemic", and "systemic racism". I kid you not: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6744a3.htm?s_cid=mm6744a3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6744a3.htm?s_cid=mm... https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20044567.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20044567.html 2 of those things aren't diseases. And none of them are contagious. They also did fuck-all for H1N1 epidemic which infected 60 million in the US and claimed five times as many lives here as C19 has so far.

by erentz 7y ago

shawnz 7y ago

> This has been known for a long time. Is that true? I don't want to be inflammatory here but as far as I've seen there isn't much research to show that laypeople's use of masks is effective and there have even been some possible mechanisms suggested that could even make it worse than wearing no mask. And furthermore I don't think that just because healthcare workers are recommended to wear masks that makes it "obvious" that they would be effective for laypeople too. Healthcare workers have full sets of PPE and also strict procedures and facilities for using them/putting them on/taking them off/etc that could potentially nullify the usefulness of that PPE if not followed. If there really is research to show otherwise then I would be very curious to see it. Most of what I've seen so far specifically focuses on their use by healthcare workers. EDIT: One promising datapoint for the pro-mask camp is that infection rates do seem to be slowing down in the Czech republic since making mask-wearing mandatory there. For a while there didn't seem to be any change but looking at the data again today, there does seem to be a decrease.

mantap 7y ago
It's blindingly obvious. We've known that people with only subclinical symptoms (such as cough) spread this since very early on. People were told to cough into their elbow. We also know that almost nobody coughs into their elbow, even some public health officials have been caught on camera at press conferences coughing into their hands[1]. A cloth mask is surely better than coughing into your hand or worse into the open air. [1] see this video https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-medical-officer-coughs-while-advising-on-shaking-hands-11950219 https://news.sky.com/video/coronavirus-medical-officer-cough...
- shawnz 7y ago
  Lots of people thought it was obvious that sodium intake caused hypertension, or cholesterol intake caused heart disease. Both ideas were since discredited. I am weary about calling anything in science or medicine "obvious", especially in a time of panic like this
  - meowface 7y ago
    Do you not see how terrible of an analogy that is?
    - shawnz 7y ago
      No? The point is that there were "obvious" mechanisms for why it should be true, but then non-obvious mechanisms which ended up making it false. Without data we can't know the impact of those non-obvious mechanisms.
      - meowface 7y ago
        Yes, there is some truth to that, but there are different forms of obvious. The effects a food or drug may have on the body after being ingested are never truly obvious. The internal workings of the body of an animal are extremely, extremely complex; there are so many factors involved. This is why there's never been any sort of consensus on nutrition. Meanwhile, if someone were to say "it's obvious that wearing nitrile gloves and properly disposing of them reduces the chance of viruses coming into contact with your bare hands", true, this is not 100% obvious. There are potential failure modes here, there could be some unknown unknowns. But in general, this seems pretty obvious. We've been using gloves for these purposes for millennia. We have no reason to think they're ineffective at preventing harmful particles from touching your bare hands. The same is true of a face mask. If a virus is likely to infect you by entering your nose or mouth, then covering your nose and mouth is likely to reduce the chance of infection from the virus. This has again been known for millennia. It's the reason why Asian countries have been wearing face masks since the start of the COVID-19 news. It's why every national and global health organization is now advising that people should start wearing masks. And it's evidence that the Surgeon General of the United States very likely knowingly lied to the US public, possibly causing unnecessary deaths.
scotty79 7y ago
Countries that managed to control the epidemic so far all wear masks.

meowface 7y ago

I think this is going to be a "thing" in future books. A massive blunder on a historical scale that gets talked about over and over as a "what the fuck were they thinking?" moment. Maybe even worse than "Saddam has WMDs" if empirical evidence can show how many deaths it caused. It may take some time, but I think people will be held accountable. I think there should be prosecutions if it can be shown any of them knowingly lied, because in that case they would have intentionally caused deaths through the spreading of disinformation. Incredible that experts had to combat deadly disinformation or misinformation from the CDC, WHO, and US Surgeon General. It's as sickening as COVID-19 itself. We're really still living in the Dark Ages.

sytse 7y ago
https://www.cato.org/blog/against-noble-lie-covid-19-edition https://www.cato.org/blog/against-noble-lie-covid-19-edition "Research shows that during disasters, people can show strikingly altruistic behavior, but interventions by authorities can backfire if they fuel mistrust or treat the public as an adversary rather than people who will step up if treated with respect. Given that even homemade masks may work better than no masks, wearing them might be something to direct people to do while they stay at home more, as we all should."
- meowface 7y ago
  Exactly. All they had to do was send the full, nuanced message rather than treat the public like toddlers who need to be lied to and told fanciful tales in order to be kept in line. They may have directly killed people with this "noble lie". It's truly disgraceful.
- interestica 7y ago
  You should point out that your quote is a quote from an entirely different article and not a direct statement from the piece you linked to (though it is quoted).

m0zg 7y ago

In the last few years, the CDC was fighting "obesity epidemic", "gun violence epidemic", and "systemic racism". I kid you not: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6744a3.htm?s_cid=mm6744a3_w https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/67/wr/mm6744a3.htm?s_cid=mm... https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20044567.html https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/nioshtic-2/20044567.html 2 of those things aren't diseases. And none of them are contagious. They also did fuck-all for H1N1 epidemic which infected 60 million in the US and claimed five times as many lives here as C19 has so far.