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I wouldn't be as critical when it comes to making only demands that will be accepted. That's not really manipulative IMO, and Swiss authorities were also very o

I wouldn't be as critical when it comes to making only demands that will be accepted. That's not really manipulative IMO, and Swiss authorities were also very open about doing this. Announcing a short lockdown then extending it (when it was clear from the beginning) is more problematic - basically, giving people false hope because they know that telling people to lock down for 3+ months would lead to a large number of people either rioting or ignoring the rules. Conversely, I suspect that some of the reductions in lockdown strictness are there to reduce the risk of dissatisfaction/loss of compliance, not based on what is safe. The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). This may have helped alleviate the shortage, but at what cost? The next time authorities say "you don't need X", people will remember and depending on other evidence, fewer or more will take it as "I definitely need X". As a specific example, schools in Switzerland will reopen tomorrow, with the government claiming that this is safe because children don't spread it much. This may or may not be based on science (there are contradicting studies supporting either side), but because I know that I cannot trust the official statements, I am assuming that the motivation is letting more people get back to work, and expect a spike in cases. Thus, I'm restricting myself less now than I would be willing to if I could reasonably expect the situation in three weeks to be better, not worse, than the situation now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
> The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). The issue of masks is/was more complicated than just an intentional lie. Medicine has a rather well-known history of really bad ideas that, at their time, were perfectly reasonable ideas within the knowledge and commonly accepted paradigms of their time. Bloodletting, arsenic, later high-dose Vitamin C (and after that, D), Resveratrol etc. It took until the middle of the 20th century for randomised trials to become the gold standard of medicine. And even today, "evidence-based medicine" is still distinct enough from just "medicine" to require that term. If you're not in medicine/biology you probably consider some logically sound idea based on your understanding of a system a useful tool (i. e. "people are interested in dogs, so I'll start a podcast on dogs and people will listen"). In medicine, this is crazy-talk! Unless you have meaningful statistical data, you do nothing except try to somehow get data! This instinct can, very rarely, go overboard. And that's possibly part of the answer here: there really wasn't any meaningful data on mask use for this sort of purpose. Therefore, the standard instinct kicked in, just as it would have for suggestions to eat lots of Garlic. Or, you know, Hydroxychloroquine. The second issue is that for N95 masks, it is actually true that laypeople are extremely unlikely to get them to fit correctly to be useful. In a healthcare setting, this involves a mandatory training/fitting that includes a special chamber with high concentrations of some odourant or fog to find leaks. Then, I'm not 100% sure if this idea of a lie intended to preserve masks for healthcare workers originated with the medical establishment, with politics, the media, or the public. But I'm almost certain that this narrative ("they are saying masks don't work to protect supplies...") was "out there" at the time. Even if somebody was trying to manipulate the public in such a way, somebody else along the route seems to have exposed this strategy at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out the same person/group was the source of both, basically telling us "masks don't work very well, one might even say not at all (wink wink), please let them go to those that can make the best use of them".
- babesh 7y ago
  Nothing changed in the science between when they were saying that masks were not useful and when they said it was mandatory.
  - mbreese 7y ago
    The thing that changed was the realization that there were significant numbers of asymptomatic carriers. This was not something that was fully appreciated at the initial stages of the pandemic response (in the US at least). Masks really don't help protect you as an individual. There isn't a lot of data available, but it has been studied (Ars has a good overview here [0]). The main take home message from most of the studies was that infection rates were largely unchanged or worse when people wore masks -- one theory being that there was a false sense of security. Contaminated air will simply get past any non-medical grade N95 mask (and N95 masks that aren't properly fit won't protect from viruses). So telling people that masks didn't help was completely accurate. But, when you have asymptomatic carriers, the masks help protect other people from you. They do this by limiting the distance contaminated air travels from your mouth/nose. So, masks are only effective when they are used by everyone -- and in the context of asymptomatic carriers. Also when people are able to be distant from each other, masks really don't help much more. It's when people can't be distant that they help -- but again, they aren't meant to protect the wearer. The health authorities (and the media) in my Midwestern city have been very clear about the motivations for masks. Unfortunately, communicating this reasoning has not been as effective. People tend to be more concerned about protecting themselves than the others. (Which is understandable) [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/should-you-wear-a-face-mask-heres-all-the-data-we-have/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/should-you-wear-a-fa...
    - babesh 7y ago
      There was an immediate and massive run on n95 masks. Those do protect you much better. I think it was mostly to protect the supply for medical providers. Also my understanding is that even cloth masks somewhat protect against droplets.

IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago

> The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). The issue of masks is/was more complicated than just an intentional lie. Medicine has a rather well-known history of really bad ideas that, at their time, were perfectly reasonable ideas within the knowledge and commonly accepted paradigms of their time. Bloodletting, arsenic, later high-dose Vitamin C (and after that, D), Resveratrol etc. It took until the middle of the 20th century for randomised trials to become the gold standard of medicine. And even today, "evidence-based medicine" is still distinct enough from just "medicine" to require that term. If you're not in medicine/biology you probably consider some logically sound idea based on your understanding of a system a useful tool (i. e. "people are interested in dogs, so I'll start a podcast on dogs and people will listen"). In medicine, this is crazy-talk! Unless you have meaningful statistical data, you do nothing except try to somehow get data! This instinct can, very rarely, go overboard. And that's possibly part of the answer here: there really wasn't any meaningful data on mask use for this sort of purpose. Therefore, the standard instinct kicked in, just as it would have for suggestions to eat lots of Garlic. Or, you know, Hydroxychloroquine. The second issue is that for N95 masks, it is actually true that laypeople are extremely unlikely to get them to fit correctly to be useful. In a healthcare setting, this involves a mandatory training/fitting that includes a special chamber with high concentrations of some odourant or fog to find leaks. Then, I'm not 100% sure if this idea of a lie intended to preserve masks for healthcare workers originated with the medical establishment, with politics, the media, or the public. But I'm almost certain that this narrative ("they are saying masks don't work to protect supplies...") was "out there" at the time. Even if somebody was trying to manipulate the public in such a way, somebody else along the route seems to have exposed this strategy at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out the same person/group was the source of both, basically telling us "masks don't work very well, one might even say not at all (wink wink), please let them go to those that can make the best use of them".

babesh 7y ago
Nothing changed in the science between when they were saying that masks were not useful and when they said it was mandatory.
- mbreese 7y ago
  The thing that changed was the realization that there were significant numbers of asymptomatic carriers. This was not something that was fully appreciated at the initial stages of the pandemic response (in the US at least). Masks really don't help protect you as an individual. There isn't a lot of data available, but it has been studied (Ars has a good overview here [0]). The main take home message from most of the studies was that infection rates were largely unchanged or worse when people wore masks -- one theory being that there was a false sense of security. Contaminated air will simply get past any non-medical grade N95 mask (and N95 masks that aren't properly fit won't protect from viruses). So telling people that masks didn't help was completely accurate. But, when you have asymptomatic carriers, the masks help protect other people from you. They do this by limiting the distance contaminated air travels from your mouth/nose. So, masks are only effective when they are used by everyone -- and in the context of asymptomatic carriers. Also when people are able to be distant from each other, masks really don't help much more. It's when people can't be distant that they help -- but again, they aren't meant to protect the wearer. The health authorities (and the media) in my Midwestern city have been very clear about the motivations for masks. Unfortunately, communicating this reasoning has not been as effective. People tend to be more concerned about protecting themselves than the others. (Which is understandable) [0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/should-you-wear-a-face-mask-heres-all-the-data-we-have/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04/should-you-wear-a-fa...
  - babesh 7y ago
    There was an immediate and massive run on n95 masks. Those do protect you much better. I think it was mostly to protect the supply for medical providers. Also my understanding is that even cloth masks somewhat protect against droplets.