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Even the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first, so while much of the naysaying is now political, there was also seemingly legitimate informati

Even the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first, so while much of the naysaying is now political, there was also seemingly legitimate information being pushed by prominent organizations that encouraged people to ignore masks. Also, there's no character limit here, you can write the entire phrase instead of using obscure acronyms.

krapp 6y ago
>Also, there's no character limit here, you can write the entire phrase instead of using obscure acronyms. FUD is no more an obscure acronym than CDC. FFS this is a programming and tech forum, people throw acronyms around all the time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
joe_the_user 6y ago
...the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first And they too admitted to spreading FUD about masks, in the misguided belief that stopping average people from using masks would leave more masks for the health care providers. That should reinforce the important point that we're dealing with unqualified, clown-show/amateur-hour political appointees in multiple levels of government, making critical decisions, at this point, a point in time, unlike most points, where leadership or it's lack matters. And I know that FUD is just a long-standing acronym for "fear, uncertainty and doubt" and I too could just write that. But being so long-standing, the term not is only convenient but has come mean a particular kind of fear, uncertainty and doubt, that spread through a particular of public relations system.
- jariel 6y ago
  It's not clownish, just the opposite. There was a severe shortage of N95's at the time, and if the public thought masks were important, there would have been an unprecedented run on PPE and the medical community would have had squat. Given that masks, particularly N95s are actually effective in a Healthcare environment ... it was the exactly the right call to make. Get the masks to those who it will actually help, not the public for whom it will make a smaller difference. Once production is ramped, or we have enough PPE, then it makes sense to have a pro-mask policy for the public. From a communications perspective, it's obviously problematic, but in terms of equipment triage, it's highly rational and we actually want our leaders making these kinds of tough decisions. The WHO and various governments should have been more efficient in their messaging however.
  - KeepFlying 6y ago
    Yeah this is the part of the issue that my social media feed seems to attach to. They post comments from politicians and public figures (and medial professionals) saying early on that we shouldn't wear masks. I'm sad that the original messages didn't come across as the nuanced issue that it is. Hospitals need the N95 stuff because they are exposed at high rates for a long time. Hospitals also educate their staff on proper protocol when wearing a mask so that people don't negate the effectiveness by wearing it wrong or touching their face after removing it. The public isn't educated on proper mask wearing procedure. We don't know how to test that a mask fits properly. We don't have the same training to avoid cross contamination and poor mask hygiene. We don't understand the marginal benefits of masks and how it creates a false sense of security causing us to take more risks and spread the disease more quickly. So at first, it makes perfect sense to funnel the best masks to the highest risk people and encourage "stay at home" (instead of "go outside with a mask") because it limits disease spread the most and protects the community. I'm sad that it has turned in to "but they said masks did nothing" as an excuse to not wear them. It was never that they did nothing, it's that masks ALONE is not enough. Masks and proper behavior are necessary together.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      > I'm sad that it has turned in to "but they said masks did nothing" as an excuse to not wear them. It was never that they did nothing, it's that masks ALONE is not enough. Masks and proper behavior are necessary together. If you have the correct behaviour (hand washing, distancing) the mask provides you no benefit. The only point to wearing a mask is if you are unable to maintain that distance, or you're stuck in a room with symptomatic people. But if you're doing that you're also provided with eye protection and gloves and a gown and copious water for handwashing, and you've probably been trained to don and doff the PPE correctly, and maybe you even have a person acting as a PPE spotter helping you put it on or take it off correctly.
      - mennis16 6y ago
        No one is telling people to wear masks in their own house or sparse outdoor spaces, and in most cases there are no rules about outdoor spaces at all. Where the anti-maskers are causing a problem is refusing to wear masks indoors. Airflow can be very different in different buildings and the "6 feet apart" distancing rule is fairly arbitrary. It is implausible to actually properly distance in most indoor spaces. Hence masks are indeed important, even for those following the other "rules". That aside, there is high overlap these days between people that say masks don't work and people that are completely negligent about distancing. It is a little ironic, as there were concerns that belief in masks would make people distance less due to sense of security.
- DanBC 6y ago
  The claim here is that 1) CDC knew masks were effective but 2) decided to ignore that to preserve stocks. For you to support claim 1 all you need to do is post links to the meta-analyses or randomised control trials that show the effectiveness of masks to prevent the spread of respiratory disease. There are lots of RCTs around mask wearing to prevent the spread of respiratory disease. > And they too admitted to spreading FUD about masks No they didn't. They haven't even changed their advice. Now they say "it may prevent the spread", they definitely don't say "it does prevent the spread", and they're still trying to preserve stocks of medical supplies.
- caseysoftware 6y ago
  I wish they had treated the public like adults: "Listen, we believe masks are effective but we don't have enough for medical personnel who need them right now so unless you absolutely need one please stay home, stay safe, and leave them to doctors, nurses, and other emergency personnel." No misinformation and the vast majority of people would have complied. Lying to everyone just cost them credibility and probably lives when this is all said and done.
  - tacon 6y ago
    "And, by the way, there is plenty of toilet paper." I bet that would have stopped the panic buying, too.
    - colordrops 6y ago
      Always this talking point whenever anyone suggests they should tell the truth. What else should they lie to us about because the public supposedly won't react well?
      - crocodiletears 6y ago
        It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more the state lies, the less we listen to it, and the more we start looking out for ourselves, and disregarding the public good. Government officials see us behaving like this, they assume we're too dumb and self-centered to do the right thing, so they attempt to manipulate us in order to get us to behave properly.
  - Mirioron 6y ago
    I don't think the public would've acted like adults though, but I don't think it would've changed anything either. Even with them saying that masks don't work, there was a mask shortage almost everywhere.
    - caseysoftware 6y ago
      Then the worst case: Still a shortage and no misinformation (aka lying) to undo. Still a major win over our current situation.
- pbourke 6y ago
  > That should reinforce the important point that we're dealing with unqualified, clown-show/amateur-hour political appointees in multiple levels of government In light of this point, how much would you trust a vaccine approved by the FDA or CDC? I’ll wait until it’s approved by reputable non-US health care agencies. Especially if a vaccine magically arrives before November 3rd.
newacct583 6y ago
> Even the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first, It. Was. Not. The WHO and CDC both issued guidance that public use of personal protective equipment was a bad idea, for fundamental scarcity reasons. And in both cases the messaging was done poorly in a few spots and could have been interpreted as statement that masks don't work against covid. They were heavily criticized for this at the time, and the criticism was carried by the media. No expert ever told people that masks don't work, or that the public shouldn't wear them. They were telling people to save them for the health care workers! And getting to the point upthread: that bit of misinformation is, again, something being deliberately propagated by people with a political agenda.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dpeck 6y ago
  Perhaps I’m just dense, but that’s exactly how I would read this tweet from late February: https://mobile.twitter.com/cdcgov/status/1233134710638825473?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/cdcgov/status/1233134710638825473... “ CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel #coronavirus. Take everyday preventive actions, like staying home when you are sick and washing hands with soap and water, to help slow the spread of respiratory illness. ”
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  The US Surgeon General, in late February: > Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus... https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/1233725785283932160 https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/12337257852839321... It's not surprising people got "masks don't work" from that messaging.
  - SturgeonsLaw 6y ago
    You left off the second half of that tweet in your quote: > but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!
karaterobot 6y ago
The guy from Slate Star Codex made a great point about this: Initially, the CDC refused to recommend wearing masks to inhibit virus transmission because there weren't rigorous studies supporting that usage. At the time they must have viewed it as irresponsible to recommend protective measures that weren't properly evidenced. But, the reason there weren't rigorous studies supporting mask usage was not because they don't work, but because nobody was willing to run a study where you exposed half the subjects to a virus without any protection just to prove that masks would help the other half. It's the same reason there aren't any double-blind studies proving that parachutes help you if you fall out of a plane.
- dinglejungle 6y ago
  Archive link to the referenced post: https://web.archive.org/web/20200415084132/https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/14/a-failure-but-not-of-prediction/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200415084132/https://slatestar...
- merpnderp 6y ago
  That’s not the primary reason. They selfishly wanted to protect mask supplies for medical use and so spread FUD around public mask usage. It was criminal and people should be held accountable. Masks work for some value and whatever that value is, it accumulates as more people wear masks, and the idiots in charge gave up months of that reduction so that people wouldn’t buy up all the masks at Home Depot. Only they still bought all the masks, and then used the CDC’s own FUD as their own to not wear them and convince everyone else not to wear them.
  - paulsutter 6y ago
    When I bought my N95 masks in mid february, every Home Depot has already been cleared out and the masks sent to China where they were valuable. I had to visit 5 stores to buy a few leftover. That was well before the CDC and surgeon general were telling people masks are bad for you don’t buy them. The masks were long gone by then.
  - lsiebert 6y ago

krapp 6y ago

>Also, there's no character limit here, you can write the entire phrase instead of using obscure acronyms. FUD is no more an obscure acronym than CDC. FFS this is a programming and tech forum, people throw acronyms around all the time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

joe_the_user 6y ago

...the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first And they too admitted to spreading FUD about masks, in the misguided belief that stopping average people from using masks would leave more masks for the health care providers. That should reinforce the important point that we're dealing with unqualified, clown-show/amateur-hour political appointees in multiple levels of government, making critical decisions, at this point, a point in time, unlike most points, where leadership or it's lack matters. And I know that FUD is just a long-standing acronym for "fear, uncertainty and doubt" and I too could just write that. But being so long-standing, the term not is only convenient but has come mean a particular kind of fear, uncertainty and doubt, that spread through a particular of public relations system.

jariel 6y ago
It's not clownish, just the opposite. There was a severe shortage of N95's at the time, and if the public thought masks were important, there would have been an unprecedented run on PPE and the medical community would have had squat. Given that masks, particularly N95s are actually effective in a Healthcare environment ... it was the exactly the right call to make. Get the masks to those who it will actually help, not the public for whom it will make a smaller difference. Once production is ramped, or we have enough PPE, then it makes sense to have a pro-mask policy for the public. From a communications perspective, it's obviously problematic, but in terms of equipment triage, it's highly rational and we actually want our leaders making these kinds of tough decisions. The WHO and various governments should have been more efficient in their messaging however.
- KeepFlying 6y ago
  Yeah this is the part of the issue that my social media feed seems to attach to. They post comments from politicians and public figures (and medial professionals) saying early on that we shouldn't wear masks. I'm sad that the original messages didn't come across as the nuanced issue that it is. Hospitals need the N95 stuff because they are exposed at high rates for a long time. Hospitals also educate their staff on proper protocol when wearing a mask so that people don't negate the effectiveness by wearing it wrong or touching their face after removing it. The public isn't educated on proper mask wearing procedure. We don't know how to test that a mask fits properly. We don't have the same training to avoid cross contamination and poor mask hygiene. We don't understand the marginal benefits of masks and how it creates a false sense of security causing us to take more risks and spread the disease more quickly. So at first, it makes perfect sense to funnel the best masks to the highest risk people and encourage "stay at home" (instead of "go outside with a mask") because it limits disease spread the most and protects the community. I'm sad that it has turned in to "but they said masks did nothing" as an excuse to not wear them. It was never that they did nothing, it's that masks ALONE is not enough. Masks and proper behavior are necessary together.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > I'm sad that it has turned in to "but they said masks did nothing" as an excuse to not wear them. It was never that they did nothing, it's that masks ALONE is not enough. Masks and proper behavior are necessary together. If you have the correct behaviour (hand washing, distancing) the mask provides you no benefit. The only point to wearing a mask is if you are unable to maintain that distance, or you're stuck in a room with symptomatic people. But if you're doing that you're also provided with eye protection and gloves and a gown and copious water for handwashing, and you've probably been trained to don and doff the PPE correctly, and maybe you even have a person acting as a PPE spotter helping you put it on or take it off correctly.
    - mennis16 6y ago
      No one is telling people to wear masks in their own house or sparse outdoor spaces, and in most cases there are no rules about outdoor spaces at all. Where the anti-maskers are causing a problem is refusing to wear masks indoors. Airflow can be very different in different buildings and the "6 feet apart" distancing rule is fairly arbitrary. It is implausible to actually properly distance in most indoor spaces. Hence masks are indeed important, even for those following the other "rules". That aside, there is high overlap these days between people that say masks don't work and people that are completely negligent about distancing. It is a little ironic, as there were concerns that belief in masks would make people distance less due to sense of security.
DanBC 6y ago
The claim here is that 1) CDC knew masks were effective but 2) decided to ignore that to preserve stocks. For you to support claim 1 all you need to do is post links to the meta-analyses or randomised control trials that show the effectiveness of masks to prevent the spread of respiratory disease. There are lots of RCTs around mask wearing to prevent the spread of respiratory disease. > And they too admitted to spreading FUD about masks No they didn't. They haven't even changed their advice. Now they say "it may prevent the spread", they definitely don't say "it does prevent the spread", and they're still trying to preserve stocks of medical supplies.
caseysoftware 6y ago
I wish they had treated the public like adults: "Listen, we believe masks are effective but we don't have enough for medical personnel who need them right now so unless you absolutely need one please stay home, stay safe, and leave them to doctors, nurses, and other emergency personnel." No misinformation and the vast majority of people would have complied. Lying to everyone just cost them credibility and probably lives when this is all said and done.
- tacon 6y ago
  "And, by the way, there is plenty of toilet paper." I bet that would have stopped the panic buying, too.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    Always this talking point whenever anyone suggests they should tell the truth. What else should they lie to us about because the public supposedly won't react well?
    - crocodiletears 6y ago
      It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more the state lies, the less we listen to it, and the more we start looking out for ourselves, and disregarding the public good. Government officials see us behaving like this, they assume we're too dumb and self-centered to do the right thing, so they attempt to manipulate us in order to get us to behave properly.
- Mirioron 6y ago
  I don't think the public would've acted like adults though, but I don't think it would've changed anything either. Even with them saying that masks don't work, there was a mask shortage almost everywhere.
  - caseysoftware 6y ago
    Then the worst case: Still a shortage and no misinformation (aka lying) to undo. Still a major win over our current situation.
pbourke 6y ago
> That should reinforce the important point that we're dealing with unqualified, clown-show/amateur-hour political appointees in multiple levels of government In light of this point, how much would you trust a vaccine approved by the FDA or CDC? I’ll wait until it’s approved by reputable non-US health care agencies. Especially if a vaccine magically arrives before November 3rd.

newacct583 6y ago

> Even the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first, It. Was. Not. The WHO and CDC both issued guidance that public use of personal protective equipment was a bad idea, for fundamental scarcity reasons. And in both cases the messaging was done poorly in a few spots and could have been interpreted as statement that masks don't work against covid. They were heavily criticized for this at the time, and the criticism was carried by the media. No expert ever told people that masks don't work, or that the public shouldn't wear them. They were telling people to save them for the health care workers! And getting to the point upthread: that bit of misinformation is, again, something being deliberately propagated by people with a political agenda.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dpeck 6y ago
Perhaps I’m just dense, but that’s exactly how I would read this tweet from late February: https://mobile.twitter.com/cdcgov/status/1233134710638825473?lang=en https://mobile.twitter.com/cdcgov/status/1233134710638825473... “ CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel #coronavirus. Take everyday preventive actions, like staying home when you are sick and washing hands with soap and water, to help slow the spread of respiratory illness. ”
ceejayoz 6y ago
The US Surgeon General, in late February: > Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus... https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/1233725785283932160 https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/12337257852839321... It's not surprising people got "masks don't work" from that messaging.
- SturgeonsLaw 6y ago
  You left off the second half of that tweet in your quote: > but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!

karaterobot 6y ago

The guy from Slate Star Codex made a great point about this: Initially, the CDC refused to recommend wearing masks to inhibit virus transmission because there weren't rigorous studies supporting that usage. At the time they must have viewed it as irresponsible to recommend protective measures that weren't properly evidenced. But, the reason there weren't rigorous studies supporting mask usage was not because they don't work, but because nobody was willing to run a study where you exposed half the subjects to a virus without any protection just to prove that masks would help the other half. It's the same reason there aren't any double-blind studies proving that parachutes help you if you fall out of a plane.

dinglejungle 6y ago
Archive link to the referenced post: https://web.archive.org/web/20200415084132/https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/14/a-failure-but-not-of-prediction/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200415084132/https://slatestar...
merpnderp 6y ago
That’s not the primary reason. They selfishly wanted to protect mask supplies for medical use and so spread FUD around public mask usage. It was criminal and people should be held accountable. Masks work for some value and whatever that value is, it accumulates as more people wear masks, and the idiots in charge gave up months of that reduction so that people wouldn’t buy up all the masks at Home Depot. Only they still bought all the masks, and then used the CDC’s own FUD as their own to not wear them and convince everyone else not to wear them.
- paulsutter 6y ago
  When I bought my N95 masks in mid february, every Home Depot has already been cleared out and the masks sent to China where they were valuable. I had to visit 5 stores to buy a few leftover. That was well before the CDC and surgeon general were telling people masks are bad for you don’t buy them. The masks were long gone by then.
- lsiebert 6y ago