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When the President of the US says that masks are fake or a hoax It wasn’t just the president who said that, it was also the medical establishment a few months
by chongli 6y ago
When the President of the US says that masks are fake or a hoax
It wasn’t just the president who said that, it was also the medical establishment a few months ago. They told people not to wear masks because they were afraid of shortages that would affect hospital supplies. They lied to the public rather than being honest about it. That sort of behaviour is extremely damaging to the public trust in experts.
- irq11 6y agoIt wasn’t just the medical establishment a few months ago - it’s the medical establishment today. The rhetoric around masks has vastly exceeded the evidence, and asserting that people were “lying” at first is to ignore the fact that the evidence hasn’t really changed since the beginning of the year: https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-... https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commentary-masks-all-covid-19-not-based-sound-data https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/commenta... https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/commentary-my-views-cloth-face-coverings-public-preventing-covid-19 https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/commenta... https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/special-ep-masks https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia...
- pm90 6y agoOur understanding of this new virus is evolving, and guidelines change with that. The medical establishment currently recommends wearing masks so your response is to not wear masks out of spite? Out of protest? Wtf are you protesting?
- kazinator 6y agoThe claim back in March, 2020 was that there is no evidence that masks are effective, at all, against the spread of infectious diseases. (You may choose to wear one, if it makes you feel better. Make sure it's an ad hoc home-made one, to save the real ones for medical practitioners; but remember, that those are not known to work, either). The backpedaling with respect to masks is not due to changes in our understanding of the virus, whatsoever.
- pm90 6y ago> 2020 was that there is no evidence that masks are effective, at all, against the spread of infectious diseases. No. The claim was that masks were effective only when used by trained hospital personnel, which is still true. It was not clear if they would be effective when used by non trained hospital staff, and it was also not clear if non n95 masks (like cloth masks) would be effective at all. Once it was determined that they were effective, the advisory was changed to reflect that. There was no backpedaling, only an increase in understanding which resulted in an update to guidance.