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But was it medical science when the CDC advised people, very strongly, to not wear masks or that the virus coming out of Wuhan was of no concern to everyday Ame

But was it medical science when the CDC advised people, very strongly, to not wear masks or that the virus coming out of Wuhan was of no concern to everyday Americans? How are people supposed to believe in capital 'S' science when our scientific institutions make claims based on their guts instead of just admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments). [EDIT]My point is, is the self-inflicted loss of trustworthiness not well earned by the CDC? When the CDC said repeatedly that masks would only make you catch the virus or that Americans shouldn't prepare or panic about the new virus, when that turned out to be either lies or decisions based on nothing approaching the rigor or science, why should people believe things have changed? How does the layperson understand that now the CDC is basing recommendations on 'S'cience?

jk700 6y ago
CDC and healthcare in general are not scientific institutions.
helen___keller 6y ago
Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? You say > admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments). But what kind of response is that really, when there's an infectious disease and the center for disease control tells the public "We have no clue what the appropriate response is, we're going to tell you in a couple months after we've done some reproducible experiments"? On the contrary, the ONLY ethical way for the CDC to act in the face of an emerging (potential) crisis is recommendations based on the current beliefs of the organization (which may be incorrect as they are, as you say, "based on their guts") and updating them the moment more evidence comes available (Which they did. Repeatedly.) So in fact, I would not say I've had a loss of trust but a gain of trust by an institution acting in a very rational manner throughout the pandemic.
- read_if_gay_ 6y ago
  > On the contrary, the ONLY ethical way for the CDC to act in the face of an emerging (potential) crisis is recommendations based on the current beliefs of the organization This is debatable, but in any case, is it excusable for the CDC to hold beliefs that are so badly wrong in the first place? Especially in the face of evidence from the rest of the world?
  - swiley 6y ago
    It probably wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't considered the profits of science and instead just experts that might have the wrong idea.
- finnthehuman 6y ago
  >Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? To properly calibrate how we treat their recommendations. I'm most sympathetic to the CDC, because everyone spreading their message are con men. In the most classic of senses, literal con men. They tell me they have the must-be-believed scoop, up until they're found out. Then they have an excuse for why I was wrong for coming away from our interaction with the perception that their preliminary statements should be taken as seriously as I did. But now, this time, today, the have the real must-be-believed scoop that I can trust.
- OminousWeapons 6y ago
  They knew that masks worked from the get go and openly admitted that their statements about masks being ineffective were driven by fears of shortages, not lack of data. This is why their statements were effectively "masks don't work unless you are a healthcare worker". Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements; they should be stating the truth to the best of their ability. It's ok to put some spin on information to achieve results, but issuing knowingly false statements immediately shreds your credibility.
  - helen___keller 6y ago
    > Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements How is this political or economic? It was purely public health. At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing". The original PR was something like "masks don't work unless it's an N95 mask and you wear it in a very specific way, and healthcare workers need those anyways so don't buy 'em". Yeah, I can agree it feels misleading now. But in a world where we're trying to literally ELIMINATE the virus, it makes sense: Wearing a cloth mask near someone with the virus COULD get you infected, so you're better off not being in that situation in the first place. Once it became clear that we couldn't just have everybody stay at home until the virus is gone, the CDC changed their recommendation to wearing cloth masks. This was about 2 weeks into "lockdowns", at the very very beginning of april. I fail to see whats so bad about the CDC's recommendations. From the point of view of public health (again, that's what the CDC is. A public health agency), these recommendations make sense in context.
    - OminousWeapons 6y ago
      > At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing". Healthcare workers aren't getting masks through the same supply chains as regular people; they are getting them through hospitals. If it truly was the case that hospitals were being outbid for supplies by private entities, that is a commerce regulatory problem arguably out of scope of the CDC. The government should have bitten the bullet and passed a law to forcibly route material to hospitals and / or eminent domained existing stockpiles for sale by companies or individuals and given them to hospitals. It is not the CDC's job to handle supply chain management in these contexts. If the CDC would like to get involved, it should be encouraging people to give masks to health care workers because they work and because health care workers should take priority. This preserves their credibility and shifts the responsibility to act onto the entities that should be bearing it: the president and congress.
free_rms 6y ago
There's two items at issue: science as a set of methodologies for understanding nature, and "Science" as a cultural totem. As a set of methodologies, science is inherently skepticism, test, verify, etc. Nothing wrong with being wrong, it just means you gather more data and learn. As a cultural totem, annoying liberals will say "science says" when they're clearly innumerate, and dumb conservatives will say "I don't trust them experts" when they clearly don't know better. The CDC making a mistake is a political misstep, rather than a step on the way to better understanding.
kickopotomus 6y ago
I think this, again, stems from a general misunderstanding of what science is. Science is a method of drawing conclusions about data. Sometimes, those initial conclusions can be misguided by incomplete data. The world discovered this virus less than a year ago. It takes some time to determine the different transmission vectors and risk factors associated with each. The CDC did not make a claim based on their "guts". The initial stance on masks was determined for a few reasons: 1) People often don't use masks properly. They often touch their masks and their faces. The initial thinking was that the virus spread largely through touching contaminated surfaces. 2) Mask mandates are difficult (as we are seeing now) and significant portions of the population refusing to use masks undercuts their efficacy. 3) There was a shortage of PPE when the pandemic started. The CDC and NHS didn't want to find themselves in a situation where hospitals had a hard time procuring masks because scared citizens hoarded the supply. The anti-science issue in the US appears to have a few prongs to it. There has been a growing distrust of science for quite some time with the anti-vax and flat earth movements. I'm not sure what caused it, but it sadly appears to be a growing trend. Also, as we are seeing with the Coronavirus response, a lot of people seem to misunderstand that scientific consensus can change as new data is collected.
- luckylion 6y ago
  1) sounds like an argument looked for after the fact. Masks were recommended initially especially because they stop you from touching your face and would train you not to do so. 2) doesn't make sense to me: because masks aren't perfect and some people refusing to wear masks makes them less efficient they'd advise to not wear masks at all? 3) is a political stance, not a scientific one. Would people have reacted differently to masks if they weren't intentionally mislead on so many levels about Covid-19 in general (the WHO losing a lot of credibility) and the efficacy of masks? When you have people who are skeptical of the government, and the government lies to them and gets caught, won't that make them even more skeptical of whatever the government says next? I don't think there ever was a scientific consensus that masks aren't effective against airborne diseases. There was a political decision, and that can change any time, but it has nothing to do with data collection or the scientific method.
  - 6y ago
zeroego 6y ago
> When the CDC said repeatedly that masks would only make you catch the virus or that Americans shouldn't prepare or panic about the new virus... Could you cite where and when the CDC said that?

jk700 6y ago

CDC and healthcare in general are not scientific institutions.

helen___keller 6y ago

Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? You say > admitting they don't know (which is the only acceptable scientific answer when you can't back up a claim with reproducible experiments). But what kind of response is that really, when there's an infectious disease and the center for disease control tells the public "We have no clue what the appropriate response is, we're going to tell you in a couple months after we've done some reproducible experiments"? On the contrary, the ONLY ethical way for the CDC to act in the face of an emerging (potential) crisis is recommendations based on the current beliefs of the organization (which may be incorrect as they are, as you say, "based on their guts") and updating them the moment more evidence comes available (Which they did. Repeatedly.) So in fact, I would not say I've had a loss of trust but a gain of trust by an institution acting in a very rational manner throughout the pandemic.

read_if_gay_ 6y ago
> On the contrary, the ONLY ethical way for the CDC to act in the face of an emerging (potential) crisis is recommendations based on the current beliefs of the organization This is debatable, but in any case, is it excusable for the CDC to hold beliefs that are so badly wrong in the first place? Especially in the face of evidence from the rest of the world?
- swiley 6y ago
  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if they weren't considered the profits of science and instead just experts that might have the wrong idea.
finnthehuman 6y ago
>Serious question, why should we be so concerned that they were wrong the first time? To properly calibrate how we treat their recommendations. I'm most sympathetic to the CDC, because everyone spreading their message are con men. In the most classic of senses, literal con men. They tell me they have the must-be-believed scoop, up until they're found out. Then they have an excuse for why I was wrong for coming away from our interaction with the perception that their preliminary statements should be taken as seriously as I did. But now, this time, today, the have the real must-be-believed scoop that I can trust.
OminousWeapons 6y ago
They knew that masks worked from the get go and openly admitted that their statements about masks being ineffective were driven by fears of shortages, not lack of data. This is why their statements were effectively "masks don't work unless you are a healthcare worker". Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements; they should be stating the truth to the best of their ability. It's ok to put some spin on information to achieve results, but issuing knowingly false statements immediately shreds your credibility.
- helen___keller 6y ago
  > Scientific organizations should not be issuing politically motivated or economically motivated statements How is this political or economic? It was purely public health. At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing". The original PR was something like "masks don't work unless it's an N95 mask and you wear it in a very specific way, and healthcare workers need those anyways so don't buy 'em". Yeah, I can agree it feels misleading now. But in a world where we're trying to literally ELIMINATE the virus, it makes sense: Wearing a cloth mask near someone with the virus COULD get you infected, so you're better off not being in that situation in the first place. Once it became clear that we couldn't just have everybody stay at home until the virus is gone, the CDC changed their recommendation to wearing cloth masks. This was about 2 weeks into "lockdowns", at the very very beginning of april. I fail to see whats so bad about the CDC's recommendations. From the point of view of public health (again, that's what the CDC is. A public health agency), these recommendations make sense in context.
  - OminousWeapons 6y ago
    > At the beginning of the pandemic, we thought we could trace and contain anybody with covid, thus ELIMINATING the virus. In this view, only healthcare workers need masks! If healthcare workers go without masks because every ordinary joe stocked up on masks and toilet paper, that means that healthcare workers get infected and become the spreaders, which is the opposite of "containing". Healthcare workers aren't getting masks through the same supply chains as regular people; they are getting them through hospitals. If it truly was the case that hospitals were being outbid for supplies by private entities, that is a commerce regulatory problem arguably out of scope of the CDC. The government should have bitten the bullet and passed a law to forcibly route material to hospitals and / or eminent domained existing stockpiles for sale by companies or individuals and given them to hospitals. It is not the CDC's job to handle supply chain management in these contexts. If the CDC would like to get involved, it should be encouraging people to give masks to health care workers because they work and because health care workers should take priority. This preserves their credibility and shifts the responsibility to act onto the entities that should be bearing it: the president and congress.

free_rms 6y ago

There's two items at issue: science as a set of methodologies for understanding nature, and "Science" as a cultural totem. As a set of methodologies, science is inherently skepticism, test, verify, etc. Nothing wrong with being wrong, it just means you gather more data and learn. As a cultural totem, annoying liberals will say "science says" when they're clearly innumerate, and dumb conservatives will say "I don't trust them experts" when they clearly don't know better. The CDC making a mistake is a political misstep, rather than a step on the way to better understanding.

kickopotomus 6y ago

I think this, again, stems from a general misunderstanding of what science is. Science is a method of drawing conclusions about data. Sometimes, those initial conclusions can be misguided by incomplete data. The world discovered this virus less than a year ago. It takes some time to determine the different transmission vectors and risk factors associated with each. The CDC did not make a claim based on their "guts". The initial stance on masks was determined for a few reasons: 1) People often don't use masks properly. They often touch their masks and their faces. The initial thinking was that the virus spread largely through touching contaminated surfaces. 2) Mask mandates are difficult (as we are seeing now) and significant portions of the population refusing to use masks undercuts their efficacy. 3) There was a shortage of PPE when the pandemic started. The CDC and NHS didn't want to find themselves in a situation where hospitals had a hard time procuring masks because scared citizens hoarded the supply. The anti-science issue in the US appears to have a few prongs to it. There has been a growing distrust of science for quite some time with the anti-vax and flat earth movements. I'm not sure what caused it, but it sadly appears to be a growing trend. Also, as we are seeing with the Coronavirus response, a lot of people seem to misunderstand that scientific consensus can change as new data is collected.

luckylion 6y ago
1) sounds like an argument looked for after the fact. Masks were recommended initially especially because they stop you from touching your face and would train you not to do so. 2) doesn't make sense to me: because masks aren't perfect and some people refusing to wear masks makes them less efficient they'd advise to not wear masks at all? 3) is a political stance, not a scientific one. Would people have reacted differently to masks if they weren't intentionally mislead on so many levels about Covid-19 in general (the WHO losing a lot of credibility) and the efficacy of masks? When you have people who are skeptical of the government, and the government lies to them and gets caught, won't that make them even more skeptical of whatever the government says next? I don't think there ever was a scientific consensus that masks aren't effective against airborne diseases. There was a political decision, and that can change any time, but it has nothing to do with data collection or the scientific method.
- 6y ago

zeroego 6y ago

> When the CDC said repeatedly that masks would only make you catch the virus or that Americans shouldn't prepare or panic about the new virus... Could you cite where and when the CDC said that?