5 ms·

The Scourge of Hygiene Theater

70 points by mrfusion 6y ago

chrisjarvis 6y ago
> “People have prevention fatigue,” Goldman told me. “They’re exhausted by all the information we’re throwing at them. We have to communicate priorities clearly; otherwise, they’ll be overloaded.” This was the best quote from the article for me. In my experience as a casual news watcher, the messaging about the virus has finally unified into a simple, easy to digest one in the last month (masks help, continue to social distance, etc.). But for the first few months of this all the articles about Covid particles living on every surface for weeks and then the even more nonsensical stories about pets getting Covid thinned out the whole message so much that I empathize with people who didn't take it seriously.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  For what it’s worth, pets really can get covid. Especially cats. That’s not a nonsensical story; it’s a fact. Other than that, I agree with the main thrust of your post.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    Facts can be nonsensical in context if they are sufficiently misleading or irrelevant.
  - thephyber 6y ago
    It's a little bit oversimplified, but technically true. > For what it’s worth, pets really can get covid. Especially cats. That’s not a nonsensical story; it’s a fact. The CDC reports[1]: > A small number of pets worldwide, including cats and dogs, have been reported to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, mostly after close contact with people with COVID-19. Cornell School of Vet Medicine says: > Very importantly, there is currently NO EVIDENCE that SARS-CoV-2 can be passed from cats to people, so there is no need for owners to do anything that would endanger the welfare of their cats (i.e. relinquish to a shelter or abandon them) even if a cat is diagnosed with COVID-19.[2] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/pets.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/... [2] https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/coronavirus-update/frequently-asked-questions-covid-19-and-feline-health https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institut...
    - gojomo 6y ago
      'NO EVIDENCE' is no comfort with regard to any emerging & understudied phenomenon. It's no stretch to think that if a cat got Covid-19 from a human or other animal, & then show symptoms and tests positive – & thus is throwing off fresh viruses – it can pass it on. It's a mammal; it exhales; it sneezes & spits & drools. This hand-wavy reassurance from Cornell is the same kind of bullshit we got with "no evidence" of aerosol transmission. (Yes, that now seem the main risk.) Or "no evidence" community masking helps. (It obviously does.). Or most infamously, WHO's credulous relaying of lies from China that there was "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" in mid-January (https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-transmission-coronavirus-tweet-was-to-appease-china-guardian-2020-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-transmission-coronavi...), when there was growing community transmission inside & outside of China, & the CCP had already mobilized behind-the-scenes for that fact.
      - thephyber 6y ago
        You seem to be conflating "absence of evidence" and "evidence of absence" (sorry for using Rumsfeldian terms). Saying there is "no clear evidence of X" is very different from saying "there is very clear evidence of (not X)". The former expresses lots of uncertainty and makes no affirmative declaration; the latter does the converse. And you seem to have strange expectations. On one hand you acknowledge it is an "emerging & understudied phenomenon", but on the other you expect the WHO to prove by mid-January (2.5 weeks after the first observed pneumonia cases) that the Chinese-supplied information was wrong (when there were almost no cases outside of China). Take the Cornell statement for what it is: a statement at a point in time. I gave you a link to the document and it has a timestamp. Understand whether it makes an affirmative declaration or whether it is simply expressing uncertainty. Also be prepared to jettison old information if new info comes out to disprove the old. You seem to already be willing to throw out statements of the WHO and FDA and CDC. Maybe you should go back and look at the nuance of the statements and whether they were clarified later.
        gojomo 6y ago
        I'm not conflating anything, but institutions like WHO and now Cornell who use this "NO EVIDENCE" construction to put people at ease on unsettled questions are relying on the fact that it sounds like "we're experts & we say it's not happening" to laypeople, and that people don't need to do anything until there is evidence. Re-read your source. They follow the emphasized 'NO EVIDENCE' with the phrase "there is no need to do anything". They answer many questions but finally at the bottom suggest nothing more than "owners wash their hands before and after interacting with their cats and litter boxes" - before again repeating the hypnotic, "no evidence" claim. But as a smart person, what's your guess on whether it will ever be shown that cats can transmit Covid-19 to humans? Isn't it highly likely to be eventually demonstrated, given what we know so far? After all, how did the cat get it? If the cat tests positive, isn't it almost certainly shedding viruses? Aren't those viruses likely in the same exhaled aerosols that cause human-to-human infections? Don't many cats like to lick or nuzzle people's hands & faces? If by basic understanding of the underlying processes, such transmission is likely – just not yet proven – is Cornell giving responsible advice? 'No evidence' is not just a "statement at a point in time" from Cornell. It's a mantra repeated six times in Cornell's FAQ, twice in all-caps for emphasis, always with the intent of putting people at ease, never paired with any analysis of the liklihood it just hasn't bee proven yet. Why don't they also say, "There's NO EVIDENCE that cats can't transmit Covid-19 to humans," which is equally true? If you had an over-65 obese diabetic relative, with cats, and one of the cats had respiratory symptoms, and tested positive for Covid-19, would you give your relative the advice, "Cornell & the CDC say all you can do is wash your hands more"? Or would that advice be just as fatal as WHO etc assuring people "no evidence" of human-to-human transmission existed at a date when it was WHO's primary job to know better? Or there was "no evidence" of aerosol transmission? Or "no evidence" community-masking was helpful?
  - chrisjarvis 6y ago
    When the hysteria of "your dog is gonna get coronavirus too!" is spread on national news it dilutes the messaging to wear masks and social distance. It's a fact but arguably irrelevant in context.
  - cortic 6y ago
    >pets really can get covid The issue i have with statements like this is that they convey a lot of false information; Within the general public definition of 'get covid' is 'dangerously contagious'. So unless you change that definition most pets can't get covid; As in most pets, either the viral load is so low they couldn't spread it or it manifests as a gastrointestinal disease and so wouldn't be contagious unless you eat the animal. I see this often, people not being sensitive enough to the common definition of important words, or worse, purposely misusing words knowing the common definition will mislead people into thinking stories are more sensational and important than they are.
- ibejoeb 6y ago
  I really couldn't disagree more with the notion that the messaging is unified. No science supports masking for the general population. New Zealand, which is touted as the gold standard (however ridiculous a comparison to anything else it might be) doesn't mask and advises against it: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-general-public/covid-19-use-face-masks-community https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/... (individual sources here https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/review_of_science_and_policy_around_face_masks_and_covid-19-15may2020.pdf https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/revi...) Scandinavia can't agree on policies. Americans are physically fighting each other over it, in probably the funniest overt display of criminal obedience. It was fomites, so don't touch anything, and don't touch your face. Now there are no fomites, and definitely put a dirty rag on your face at all times. I'd go back to 9/11 over this cluster fuck in a heartbeat.
  - vore 6y ago
    New Zealand is not really the best example here given they have no community transmission: I can understand different scenarios having different recommendations.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    That link doesn't advise against mask wearing. I'd recommend you revise your summary or indicate where in the article you are reading that. > They are therefore not a substitute for basic hygiene measures and physical distancing, where possible and practical. That was the strongest wording "against" that I saw. And that is the typical "no evidence" disclaimer, not an evidence of no proof or evidence of harm. Your post is misleading. It takes a bulletin from a country where COVID had been essentially eliminated, and implied that it's guidelines are appropriate for others where infection is rampant.
    - ibejoeb 6y ago
      It's all contained in the sources provided in the footnotes of the page: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/review_of_science_and_policy_around_face_masks_and_covid-19-15may2020.pdf https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/revi... But, listen, if you have better information, I'm all ears. The whole point is to be directed by science, and right now, you're not going to find hard science, i.e., RCTs, to support the prevailing policies.
- thephyber 6y ago
  I found the Governor Cuomo daily presentations mildly useful, but would have preferred if they were more succinct. All of the others (White House, local news, cable news, most newspaper coverage) I could have lived without. The problem is that attention has become Tragedy of the Commons and no news organization wants to be the one that didn't get some eyeballs for their advertisers when people crave COVID information and certainty.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > This was the best quote from the article for me. In my experience as a casual news watcher, the messaging about the virus has finally unified into a simple, easy to digest one in the last month (masks help, continue to social distance, etc.). But for the first few months of this all the articles about Covid particles living on every surface for weeks and then the even more nonsensical stories about pets getting Covid thinned out the whole message so much that I empathize with people who didn't take it seriously. The news reporting (and even some statements from authoritative bodies) on this has been not just bad, but I believe harmful. Months of "facts" reported in an over-confident manner, and subsequently discovered to be wrong, provides great soil for growing conspiracy theories, or just general mistrust throughout the public. Considering the facts seem to be finally coalescing somewhat, is there a single authoritative (and well advertised) resource where USA residents can go to get a summary of the current guidelines and facts (preferably with supporting evidence, uncertainties fully disclosed), written in a form that people will actually read? EDIT: Others are mentioning more screwups below, such as only the media focusing on reporting total infections. I've had the same complaint (the odd way a lot of the data is reported) even reading reports on the CDC website. Some people don't believe that this obviously flawed approach to informing people accurately is purely due to incompetence.
renewiltord 6y ago
We all know how this happens. Some scientist fails to out-rule some hypothesis, she honestly publishes "X may happen if Y", the news publishes "X could happen if Y!", some dude on the Internet will go around saying "We don't know X can't happen! You're a fool for thinking X can't happen! If you aren't acting as if X is guaranteed to happen, you are killing people". And then everyone who is a positive conformist piles on. Don't tell me, I know. "Immunity may not be real", "Masks may not work", "Nervous system damage may occur", blah blah blah. A bunch of people who don't understand that knowledge is a probabilistic thing. Listen, I know you guys¹ are not prepared for low-information high-replication messaging because of how you're reacting to this but I've lived through two local epidemics before. It's always this way. And until the first time you're inured to The Echo Engine of people who know nothing but repeat things with increased artifacts, you'll believe them. It's just unfortunate that you did. No biggie. Being unable to tell truth from bullshit isn't a crime. But for the love of God, don't join The Echo Engine. ¹ Why, Rene, do you consider yourself more prepared? Because I knew imperfection in mitigation is okay. Because when HN was busy telling me that the only masks that would work were N95 and higher masks, and only when worn by professionals, and only when discarded after 8 hours of use, I didn't listen. Because this isn't FOOF. Very few things in the world need perfection. Nature doesn't like the Heaviside step function that much.
- nomel 6y ago
  > The Echo Engine Just curious, why "engine"? Is it because the propagation is fueled by itself?
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    I thought it sounded cool because it makes echoes rather than just sits there passively. i.e. a participant won't just repeat this per encounter. They'll provide repeated pulses of information broadcast.
- brigandish 6y ago
  FOOF?
9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
The theatrical aspects are particularly visible when it comes to air travel and border control: https://gyrovague.com/2020/06/12/covid-theater-the-upcoming-gauntlet-of-dubious-air-travel-safety-measures/ https://gyrovague.com/2020/06/12/covid-theater-the-upcoming-... As a side note, I believe it's Bruce Schneier who came up with the term "security theater".
- strken 6y ago
  From your link: > So odds are a 7 or 10-day quarantine would also catch 99% of infections — but what bureaucrat would dare break ranks and suggest so? From https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2020/05/11/15/18/the-incubation-period-of-coronavirus-disease https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2020/...: > 97.5% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 will exhibit symptoms by 11.5 days. > Monitoring people exposed to SARS-CoV-2 for 14 days for development of symptoms should be sufficient to identify 99% of cases or more. As far as I can tell, a 7 or 10 day quarantine would not catch 99% of infections, and there's no evidence to suggest it would.
  - taneq 6y ago
    10 days should be more than enough incubation time to produce a positive test result if infected. A 10-day quarantine followed by blanket testing in order to leave quarantine would eradicate the virus.
    - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
      Quarantine plus test is SOP in many places including Singapore and Victoria (Australia), but everybody seems to be sticking to the 14-day rule.
ggm 6y ago
OTOH casual rates of enterovirus, norovirus are down, and I believe are used by epidemiologists to track likely adherence to isolating behaviours. So a side-effect measurement which helps understand risks in fomites and Covid-19 also is a public health story in itself: some of the more pernicious infection risks from not washing hands, touching contaminated surfaces has reduced significantly. But, underlying problems with food infection (Salmonella, worms and parasites, off meat) have not improved, because they are not amenable to this level of community change, they vest in food handling behind the scenes which has always had an expectation of high cleaning burdens.
helen___keller 6y ago
Theater is what you get when your country isn't prepared to pay the (monetary, political, cultural) cost of actually effective policy.
spodek 6y ago
Another side effect: insane amounts of pollution and litter.
- fiblye 6y ago
  That's my main concern too. Right when people started taking plastic pollution seriously and progress was beginning to be seen, suddenly everyone is wearing cheap plastic fiber masks that litter the streets everywhere; food items are quintuple wrapped in plastic; plastic screens are up everywhere to separate people; and cheap, single use, hygienic items made of plastic and wrapped in plastic are being distributed like candy. I'm worried that it'll take decades to cut down on it again.
  - wahern 6y ago
    > food items are quintuple wrapped in plastic I'm not sure precisely what the balance of all evidence looks like in this particular case, but I suspect that plastic wrapping might be better able to harbor pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, than the skins of most fruits and vegetable, excepting perhaps leafy greens for the obvious reason of increased surface area. From what research literature I have read over the years (regarding cutting boards, Influenza, Ebola, SARS, etc), it's my understanding that in general pathogens of all types survive longer or at the very least remain functionally transmissible longer on non-porous surfaces. Not just longer, but significantly longer, such as to make it a worthwhile consideration from a health & safety perspective where such a vector matters--which is probably rarely if ever. Even waxed fruits and vegetables might be better in this regard than plastic. If people prefer packaging to mitigate contact transmission (e.g. when people inspect loose items), brown paper bagging is the best route in lieu of some expensive, synthetic micromaterial. I realize the packaging is to soothe paranoid shoppers, and plastic is the easiest way to do that. But perhaps someday the public will be educated enough to be more discerning regarding what plausibly helps and what doesn't, notwithstanding the lack of any substantive need.
    - fiblye 6y ago
      That's the reasoning behind people recommending wooden cutting boards over plastic. Supposedly, bacteria just stick in the little crevices made by every cut in a plastic board and remain there, while they end up dessicated or absorbed by wooden cutting boards. I think people already have a habit of washing down fresh fruits and vegetables because they're assumed to be dirty to some extent. I think when people eat things from a plastic package, they assume it to be sanitary. Most people probably aren't washing down chip bags before opening them and sticking their hands inside. They probably aren't doing it with wrapped apples either.
kbenson 6y ago
Now if only we could get the media to report on useful statistics, rather than total number of cases between geographic areas that differ widely in size and population. California's not even in the top 20% for new cases over the last 7 days per capita, and is barely in the top 50% overall per capita, but we have the most individual cases overall because we have such a large population. That it gets reported along with Florida every time there's a "new record" broken in new cases (gripe number two, for a similar reason) is just the media trying to make the headlines seem as relevant as possibly to the largest audience, even if it's more fear-mongering than useful.
- refurb 6y ago
  This annoys me to no end as well. In my local area new cases are quite low, maybe 10 new cases in a population of 750,000. Yesterday they mentioned a record number of new cases and a “potential hotspot”. The cases went up to 12.
- war1025 6y ago
  > Now if only we could get the media to report on useful statistics The website for my state [1] has a map with infection counts by county. The irritating thing about this map is it's total numbers since February. That tells me nothing useful in terms of how places are currently doing. You can click on individual counties and it'll give you the 14 day rolling total, which is pretty useful for seeing upticks and improvements. But for whatever reason, we've decided that "number of people who ever got sick" is the benchmark we need to focus on. It seems completely unhelpful. [1] https://coronavirus.iowa.gov/pages/case-counts https://coronavirus.iowa.gov/pages/case-counts
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Even Wikipedia only gives cumulative counts for Iowa :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Iowa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Iowa
    - war1025 6y ago
js2 6y ago
Dupe, and why was this submitted via archive.org? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966727
- dang 6y ago
  We've changed the url from https://web.archive.org/web/20200727181916/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200727181916/https://www.theat... above. Submitters: please post original sources. This is in the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- renewiltord 6y ago
  It's an old paywall bypass trick. Classic HN situation. Post w/o paywall bypass = comments on paywalls. Post w/ paywall bypass = comments on why bypass.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

70 points by mrfusion 6y ago

> “People have prevention fatigue,” Goldman told me. “They’re exhausted by all the information we’re throwing at them. We have to communicate priorities clearly; otherwise, they’ll be overloaded.” This was the best quote from the article for me. In my experience as a casual news watcher, the messaging about the virus has finally unified into a simple, easy to digest one in the last month (masks help, continue to social distance, etc.). But for the first few months of this all the articles about Covid particles living on every surface for weeks and then the even more nonsensical stories about pets getting Covid thinned out the whole message so much that I empathize with people who didn't take it seriously.

umanwizard 6y ago
For what it’s worth, pets really can get covid. Especially cats. That’s not a nonsensical story; it’s a fact. Other than that, I agree with the main thrust of your post.
- darkerside 6y ago
  Facts can be nonsensical in context if they are sufficiently misleading or irrelevant.
- thephyber 6y ago
  It's a little bit oversimplified, but technically true. > For what it’s worth, pets really can get covid. Especially cats. That’s not a nonsensical story; it’s a fact. The CDC reports[1]: > A small number of pets worldwide, including cats and dogs, have been reported to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19, mostly after close contact with people with COVID-19. Cornell School of Vet Medicine says: > Very importantly, there is currently NO EVIDENCE that SARS-CoV-2 can be passed from cats to people, so there is no need for owners to do anything that would endanger the welfare of their cats (i.e. relinquish to a shelter or abandon them) even if a cat is diagnosed with COVID-19.[2] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/pets.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/... [2] https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/coronavirus-update/frequently-asked-questions-covid-19-and-feline-health https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institut...
  - gojomo 6y ago
    'NO EVIDENCE' is no comfort with regard to any emerging & understudied phenomenon. It's no stretch to think that if a cat got Covid-19 from a human or other animal, & then show symptoms and tests positive – & thus is throwing off fresh viruses – it can pass it on. It's a mammal; it exhales; it sneezes & spits & drools. This hand-wavy reassurance from Cornell is the same kind of bullshit we got with "no evidence" of aerosol transmission. (Yes, that now seem the main risk.) Or "no evidence" community masking helps. (It obviously does.). Or most infamously, WHO's credulous relaying of lies from China that there was "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" in mid-January (https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-transmission-coronavirus-tweet-was-to-appease-china-guardian-2020-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/who-no-transmission-coronavi...), when there was growing community transmission inside & outside of China, & the CCP had already mobilized behind-the-scenes for that fact.
    - thephyber 6y ago
      You seem to be conflating "absence of evidence" and "evidence of absence" (sorry for using Rumsfeldian terms). Saying there is "no clear evidence of X" is very different from saying "there is very clear evidence of (not X)". The former expresses lots of uncertainty and makes no affirmative declaration; the latter does the converse. And you seem to have strange expectations. On one hand you acknowledge it is an "emerging & understudied phenomenon", but on the other you expect the WHO to prove by mid-January (2.5 weeks after the first observed pneumonia cases) that the Chinese-supplied information was wrong (when there were almost no cases outside of China). Take the Cornell statement for what it is: a statement at a point in time. I gave you a link to the document and it has a timestamp. Understand whether it makes an affirmative declaration or whether it is simply expressing uncertainty. Also be prepared to jettison old information if new info comes out to disprove the old. You seem to already be willing to throw out statements of the WHO and FDA and CDC. Maybe you should go back and look at the nuance of the statements and whether they were clarified later.
      - gojomo 6y ago
        I'm not conflating anything, but institutions like WHO and now Cornell who use this "NO EVIDENCE" construction to put people at ease on unsettled questions are relying on the fact that it sounds like "we're experts & we say it's not happening" to laypeople, and that people don't need to do anything until there is evidence. Re-read your source. They follow the emphasized 'NO EVIDENCE' with the phrase "there is no need to do anything". They answer many questions but finally at the bottom suggest nothing more than "owners wash their hands before and after interacting with their cats and litter boxes" - before again repeating the hypnotic, "no evidence" claim. But as a smart person, what's your guess on whether it will ever be shown that cats can transmit Covid-19 to humans? Isn't it highly likely to be eventually demonstrated, given what we know so far? After all, how did the cat get it? If the cat tests positive, isn't it almost certainly shedding viruses? Aren't those viruses likely in the same exhaled aerosols that cause human-to-human infections? Don't many cats like to lick or nuzzle people's hands & faces? If by basic understanding of the underlying processes, such transmission is likely – just not yet proven – is Cornell giving responsible advice? 'No evidence' is not just a "statement at a point in time" from Cornell. It's a mantra repeated six times in Cornell's FAQ, twice in all-caps for emphasis, always with the intent of putting people at ease, never paired with any analysis of the liklihood it just hasn't bee proven yet. Why don't they also say, "There's NO EVIDENCE that cats can't transmit Covid-19 to humans," which is equally true? If you had an over-65 obese diabetic relative, with cats, and one of the cats had respiratory symptoms, and tested positive for Covid-19, would you give your relative the advice, "Cornell & the CDC say all you can do is wash your hands more"? Or would that advice be just as fatal as WHO etc assuring people "no evidence" of human-to-human transmission existed at a date when it was WHO's primary job to know better? Or there was "no evidence" of aerosol transmission? Or "no evidence" community-masking was helpful?
- chrisjarvis 6y ago
  When the hysteria of "your dog is gonna get coronavirus too!" is spread on national news it dilutes the messaging to wear masks and social distance. It's a fact but arguably irrelevant in context.
- cortic 6y ago
  >pets really can get covid The issue i have with statements like this is that they convey a lot of false information; Within the general public definition of 'get covid' is 'dangerously contagious'. So unless you change that definition most pets can't get covid; As in most pets, either the viral load is so low they couldn't spread it or it manifests as a gastrointestinal disease and so wouldn't be contagious unless you eat the animal. I see this often, people not being sensitive enough to the common definition of important words, or worse, purposely misusing words knowing the common definition will mislead people into thinking stories are more sensational and important than they are.
ibejoeb 6y ago
I really couldn't disagree more with the notion that the messaging is unified. No science supports masking for the general population. New Zealand, which is touted as the gold standard (however ridiculous a comparison to anything else it might be) doesn't mask and advises against it: https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-health-advice-general-public/covid-19-use-face-masks-community https://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/diseases-and-conditions/... (individual sources here https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/review_of_science_and_policy_around_face_masks_and_covid-19-15may2020.pdf https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/revi...) Scandinavia can't agree on policies. Americans are physically fighting each other over it, in probably the funniest overt display of criminal obedience. It was fomites, so don't touch anything, and don't touch your face. Now there are no fomites, and definitely put a dirty rag on your face at all times. I'd go back to 9/11 over this cluster fuck in a heartbeat.
- vore 6y ago
  New Zealand is not really the best example here given they have no community transmission: I can understand different scenarios having different recommendations.
- darkerside 6y ago
  That link doesn't advise against mask wearing. I'd recommend you revise your summary or indicate where in the article you are reading that. > They are therefore not a substitute for basic hygiene measures and physical distancing, where possible and practical. That was the strongest wording "against" that I saw. And that is the typical "no evidence" disclaimer, not an evidence of no proof or evidence of harm. Your post is misleading. It takes a bulletin from a country where COVID had been essentially eliminated, and implied that it's guidelines are appropriate for others where infection is rampant.
  - ibejoeb 6y ago
    It's all contained in the sources provided in the footnotes of the page: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/review_of_science_and_policy_around_face_masks_and_covid-19-15may2020.pdf https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/revi... But, listen, if you have better information, I'm all ears. The whole point is to be directed by science, and right now, you're not going to find hard science, i.e., RCTs, to support the prevailing policies.
thephyber 6y ago
I found the Governor Cuomo daily presentations mildly useful, but would have preferred if they were more succinct. All of the others (White House, local news, cable news, most newspaper coverage) I could have lived without. The problem is that attention has become Tragedy of the Commons and no news organization wants to be the one that didn't get some eyeballs for their advertisers when people crave COVID information and certainty.
mistermann 6y ago
> This was the best quote from the article for me. In my experience as a casual news watcher, the messaging about the virus has finally unified into a simple, easy to digest one in the last month (masks help, continue to social distance, etc.). But for the first few months of this all the articles about Covid particles living on every surface for weeks and then the even more nonsensical stories about pets getting Covid thinned out the whole message so much that I empathize with people who didn't take it seriously. The news reporting (and even some statements from authoritative bodies) on this has been not just bad, but I believe harmful. Months of "facts" reported in an over-confident manner, and subsequently discovered to be wrong, provides great soil for growing conspiracy theories, or just general mistrust throughout the public. Considering the facts seem to be finally coalescing somewhat, is there a single authoritative (and well advertised) resource where USA residents can go to get a summary of the current guidelines and facts (preferably with supporting evidence, uncertainties fully disclosed), written in a form that people will actually read? EDIT: Others are mentioning more screwups below, such as only the media focusing on reporting total infections. I've had the same complaint (the odd way a lot of the data is reported) even reading reports on the CDC website. Some people don't believe that this obviously flawed approach to informing people accurately is purely due to incompetence.

renewiltord 6y ago

We all know how this happens. Some scientist fails to out-rule some hypothesis, she honestly publishes "X may happen if Y", the news publishes "X could happen if Y!", some dude on the Internet will go around saying "We don't know X can't happen! You're a fool for thinking X can't happen! If you aren't acting as if X is guaranteed to happen, you are killing people". And then everyone who is a positive conformist piles on. Don't tell me, I know. "Immunity may not be real", "Masks may not work", "Nervous system damage may occur", blah blah blah. A bunch of people who don't understand that knowledge is a probabilistic thing. Listen, I know you guys¹ are not prepared for low-information high-replication messaging because of how you're reacting to this but I've lived through two local epidemics before. It's always this way. And until the first time you're inured to The Echo Engine of people who know nothing but repeat things with increased artifacts, you'll believe them. It's just unfortunate that you did. No biggie. Being unable to tell truth from bullshit isn't a crime. But for the love of God, don't join The Echo Engine. ¹ Why, Rene, do you consider yourself more prepared? Because I knew imperfection in mitigation is okay. Because when HN was busy telling me that the only masks that would work were N95 and higher masks, and only when worn by professionals, and only when discarded after 8 hours of use, I didn't listen. Because this isn't FOOF. Very few things in the world need perfection. Nature doesn't like the Heaviside step function that much.

nomel 6y ago
> The Echo Engine Just curious, why "engine"? Is it because the propagation is fueled by itself?
- renewiltord 6y ago
  I thought it sounded cool because it makes echoes rather than just sits there passively. i.e. a participant won't just repeat this per encounter. They'll provide repeated pulses of information broadcast.
brigandish 6y ago
FOOF?

9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago

The theatrical aspects are particularly visible when it comes to air travel and border control: https://gyrovague.com/2020/06/12/covid-theater-the-upcoming-gauntlet-of-dubious-air-travel-safety-measures/ https://gyrovague.com/2020/06/12/covid-theater-the-upcoming-... As a side note, I believe it's Bruce Schneier who came up with the term "security theater".

strken 6y ago
From your link: > So odds are a 7 or 10-day quarantine would also catch 99% of infections — but what bureaucrat would dare break ranks and suggest so? From https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2020/05/11/15/18/the-incubation-period-of-coronavirus-disease https://www.acc.org/latest-in-cardiology/journal-scans/2020/...: > 97.5% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 will exhibit symptoms by 11.5 days. > Monitoring people exposed to SARS-CoV-2 for 14 days for development of symptoms should be sufficient to identify 99% of cases or more. As far as I can tell, a 7 or 10 day quarantine would not catch 99% of infections, and there's no evidence to suggest it would.
- taneq 6y ago
  10 days should be more than enough incubation time to produce a positive test result if infected. A 10-day quarantine followed by blanket testing in order to leave quarantine would eradicate the virus.
  - 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y ago
    Quarantine plus test is SOP in many places including Singapore and Victoria (Australia), but everybody seems to be sticking to the 14-day rule.

ggm 6y ago

OTOH casual rates of enterovirus, norovirus are down, and I believe are used by epidemiologists to track likely adherence to isolating behaviours. So a side-effect measurement which helps understand risks in fomites and Covid-19 also is a public health story in itself: some of the more pernicious infection risks from not washing hands, touching contaminated surfaces has reduced significantly. But, underlying problems with food infection (Salmonella, worms and parasites, off meat) have not improved, because they are not amenable to this level of community change, they vest in food handling behind the scenes which has always had an expectation of high cleaning burdens.

helen___keller 6y ago

Theater is what you get when your country isn't prepared to pay the (monetary, political, cultural) cost of actually effective policy.

spodek 6y ago

Another side effect: insane amounts of pollution and litter.

fiblye 6y ago
That's my main concern too. Right when people started taking plastic pollution seriously and progress was beginning to be seen, suddenly everyone is wearing cheap plastic fiber masks that litter the streets everywhere; food items are quintuple wrapped in plastic; plastic screens are up everywhere to separate people; and cheap, single use, hygienic items made of plastic and wrapped in plastic are being distributed like candy. I'm worried that it'll take decades to cut down on it again.
- wahern 6y ago
  > food items are quintuple wrapped in plastic I'm not sure precisely what the balance of all evidence looks like in this particular case, but I suspect that plastic wrapping might be better able to harbor pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, than the skins of most fruits and vegetable, excepting perhaps leafy greens for the obvious reason of increased surface area. From what research literature I have read over the years (regarding cutting boards, Influenza, Ebola, SARS, etc), it's my understanding that in general pathogens of all types survive longer or at the very least remain functionally transmissible longer on non-porous surfaces. Not just longer, but significantly longer, such as to make it a worthwhile consideration from a health & safety perspective where such a vector matters--which is probably rarely if ever. Even waxed fruits and vegetables might be better in this regard than plastic. If people prefer packaging to mitigate contact transmission (e.g. when people inspect loose items), brown paper bagging is the best route in lieu of some expensive, synthetic micromaterial. I realize the packaging is to soothe paranoid shoppers, and plastic is the easiest way to do that. But perhaps someday the public will be educated enough to be more discerning regarding what plausibly helps and what doesn't, notwithstanding the lack of any substantive need.
  - fiblye 6y ago
    That's the reasoning behind people recommending wooden cutting boards over plastic. Supposedly, bacteria just stick in the little crevices made by every cut in a plastic board and remain there, while they end up dessicated or absorbed by wooden cutting boards. I think people already have a habit of washing down fresh fruits and vegetables because they're assumed to be dirty to some extent. I think when people eat things from a plastic package, they assume it to be sanitary. Most people probably aren't washing down chip bags before opening them and sticking their hands inside. They probably aren't doing it with wrapped apples either.

kbenson 6y ago

Now if only we could get the media to report on useful statistics, rather than total number of cases between geographic areas that differ widely in size and population. California's not even in the top 20% for new cases over the last 7 days per capita, and is barely in the top 50% overall per capita, but we have the most individual cases overall because we have such a large population. That it gets reported along with Florida every time there's a "new record" broken in new cases (gripe number two, for a similar reason) is just the media trying to make the headlines seem as relevant as possibly to the largest audience, even if it's more fear-mongering than useful.

refurb 6y ago
This annoys me to no end as well. In my local area new cases are quite low, maybe 10 new cases in a population of 750,000. Yesterday they mentioned a record number of new cases and a “potential hotspot”. The cases went up to 12.
war1025 6y ago
> Now if only we could get the media to report on useful statistics The website for my state [1] has a map with infection counts by county. The irritating thing about this map is it's total numbers since February. That tells me nothing useful in terms of how places are currently doing. You can click on individual counties and it'll give you the 14 day rolling total, which is pretty useful for seeing upticks and improvements. But for whatever reason, we've decided that "number of people who ever got sick" is the benchmark we need to focus on. It seems completely unhelpful. [1] https://coronavirus.iowa.gov/pages/case-counts https://coronavirus.iowa.gov/pages/case-counts
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Even Wikipedia only gives cumulative counts for Iowa :( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Iowa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Iowa
  - war1025 6y ago

js2 6y ago

Dupe, and why was this submitted via archive.org? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23966727

dang 6y ago
We've changed the url from https://web.archive.org/web/20200727181916/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/scourge-hygiene-theater/614599/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200727181916/https://www.theat... above. Submitters: please post original sources. This is in the guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
renewiltord 6y ago
It's an old paywall bypass trick. Classic HN situation. Post w/o paywall bypass = comments on paywalls. Post w/ paywall bypass = comments on why bypass.

deleted 6y ago

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