6 ms·

They lied because they didn't want medical professionals to run out of masks

by nso95 6y ago

daveguy 6y ago
Source? From what I remember the message very early on wasn't that masks don't work, it was "save the masks for the front line workers"
- j8hn 6y ago
  Here is a short video from the CDC in March of this year. https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889 https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889 If you search Google news for "masks" between February and March you can see where the surgeon general and others were saying that masks may increase the likelihood of infection because of touching your face.
  - konjin 6y ago
    I'm glad someone spreading lies like that will be ever banned from youtube.
    - stkdump 6y ago
      Did you even watch the video? 1. He says there is no need to wear masks in public "at this time". 2. He says there is no evidence that masks protect you against infections (which is of course something that can and did change over time) 3. He mentioned that touching your face can be dangerous, not that wearing masks increases the risk. I don't think anyone disputed this then or now. That is something else than people saying now that there is no evidence that masks help, because now we have evidence.
      - konjin 6y ago
        Have you had to deal with youtube moderation? Moderators watching videos is optional.
- moduspol 6y ago
  FWIW: Early news about COVID-19 and criticism is much easier to find on DuckDuckGo than Google. > In an interview on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Monday, Adams said wearing face masks could actually increase a person's risk of contracting the coronavirus. > "You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a health care provider," Adams said. "Folks who don't know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus," he added. > Adams' comments Monday reiterate his blaring tweet from the weekend, urging people to "STOP BUYING MASKS." He said that they were "NOT effective" to the general public and noted that the increased demand in masks puts medical professionals at risk. > The World Health Organization joined TikTok last week to provide accurate information about COVID-19. In one of two videos posted, it explained most people should not wear masks and provided instructions for how to properly wear one. https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-need-masks-pence-says-as-demand-increases-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-need-masks-pe...
gurkendoktor 6y ago
Then they should realize that noble lies will erode trust in institutions (rightly so).
- mlang23 6y ago
  This is probably the biggest problem. Trust in government due to bad decisions and outright lies is eroding rapidly. Worldwide. In a few months, the willingness to cooperate from citizens will be almost zero. Rightly so. If I catch someone lying for his own benefit, or not telling the truth because they think I am too stupid to understand, why should I ever listen to anything from the same person/orga again?
  - makomk 6y ago
    Part of the problem is that the media keeps on misleading people about how other countries are doing in order to push the narrative that their country's government is inexplicably failing at dealing with Covid-19. For example, here in the UK (and I think the US is similar), the media and opposition have been pushing the idea that a competent government would be able to set up a working test and trace program to control the virus, like South Korea, and the fact that the UK was forced to resort to closing and restricting pubs and restaurants and limiting social interactions is proof ours is incompetent. The BBC has also been pushing the narrative that there's no evidence those kind of local lockdown measures work. In reality, of course, South Korea has been heavily reliant on precisely those kind of measures - every time they lift them and try to rely on test and trace, masks, and weaker social distancing measures, cases start increasing and they have to reimpose them. For example, take the South Korea section in this article about how Europe is failing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-54482905 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-54482905 It starts off by attributing their success to "mass testing and strict contact tracing". In reality, South Korea is testing at about a tenth the rate of a typical European country (10-20 thousand a day), doesn't routinely test people with mild potential symptoms, and has no way of reliably detecting cases that don't have links to ones they know about - which have been appearing in increasingly alarming numbers. Technically, "tests have always been easily available" as the article says, but they successfully discourage most people from getting one by charging for them under most circumstances. They don't even appear to be trying to improve this either; their testing capacity seems to be at the same level it was in like March. As for the strict contact tracing, this sentence hides a multitude of things: "the majority of people have accepted it and prioritised controlling the pandemic over their own privacy". I'm sure the people who didn't have the entire internet speculating that they were cheating on their partner, and aren't being criminalized for refusing to out themselves as gay to their homophobic employer in a country with no legal protections, and don't oppose the government, have no problem with it. Something tells me that the BBC would be infinitely less willing to put a positive spin on screwing over a minority of people like that in the name of the greater good if the UK or US government did it though. The article goes on to downplay the other restrictions. "When infections rise, stricter measures are put in place", the BBC says, but makes it sound a limited, mostly brief and long ago thing: "At one point there was a 21:00 curfew on restaurants in the capital, Seoul. But now, social distancing guidelines are back to their lowest level." In reality, they'd literally only just dropped social distancing meaures to that level and allowed bars in Seoul to reopen right before the article was published: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-to-tighten-social-distancing-curbs-during-two-holiday-weeks-idUKKCN26G0E5 https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southko... It's still too early to even see the effect of this on cases. That bar closure was also imposed only two weeks after the previous 9pm curfew and complete ban on indoor dining/drinking in Seoul establishments was lifted. If the UK did this, there'd be endless BBC headlines about U-turns, confusing, seemingly arbitrary measures, and speculation as to whether businesses would survive - not this kind of attempt to minimize the extent of the measures. Especially the part about night clubs reopening; South Korea has tried this at least twice and had to do almost immediate U-turns both times, and there's no reason to expect they can manage it now. I suspect the BBC would also have plenty to say about (for example) the flu vaccine screw-up if it happened in the UK: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20201015001058 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20201015001058 They've certainly put enough of a negative spin on the fact that the UK doesn't have enough flu vaccines immediately to deal with unprecidented demand and the implications for the fight against Covid-19, even though there's nothing the government could really do given the lead times. But because it happened in the supposedly more competent success story country, most people will never hear about it and the illusion that our government is just incompetent compared to them will remain unchallenged.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
DanBC 6y ago
Can you link to the studies that you think existed in March / April 2020 that showed that masks worked?
- jjgreen 6y ago
  Or since?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  Here you go. This guy had some trouble just after posting it btw. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...
  - DanBC 6y ago
    I don't think this says what you think it says. > The meta-analysis itself avoided drawing any conclusions at all, and would not even admit that N95 respirators worked. I mean, either you believe the science or you don't. You don't get to complain that it didn't support your preconception. > According to intention-to-treat, the studies unanimously found masks to be useless. But there were a lot of signs that intention-to-treat wasn’t the right choice here. Not a great sign. > In other words, respirators are better than masks are better than nothing. It would be wrong to genuinely conclude this, because it’s not statistically significant. But it would also be wrong to conclude the studies show masks don’t work, because they mostly show respirators don’t work, and we (hopefully) know they do. He's a fucking idiot.
j8hn 6y ago
For a while I assumed they lied as well. Now, looking back I'm not so sure. There really wasn't much scientific evidence of masks being effective for respiratory diseases.
- freeone3000 6y ago
  Putting aside the knee-jerk response of "of course a mask that covers your disease holes is protection against giving other people your disease"... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971216310104 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121... (2016) on the role of (incidental) face coverings to prevent population-level disease at large gatherings. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190903134732.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190903134732.h... (2019) on the role of personal protective equipment on stopping contraction of respiratory disease (flu). And to top it off: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/65/11/1934/4068747 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/65/11/1934/4068747 (2017) meta-analysis, including a controlled section on effectiveness on population face mask use to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV. We had the evidence.
- blub 6y ago
  No, they pretty much lied. The CDC was for example recommending n95 usage for medical personnel and surgical masks for infected people during the first SARS outbreak.
- dx87 6y ago
  Fauci admitted they lied because they knew there was a mask shortage, and they wanted to make sure medical personnel could get masks before the general population bought them all.
- infamy_gyms_stu 6y ago
  Dr Fauci has said their initial stance on masks was to ensure that masks were available for health care workers[0]. He did not say their stance changed due to new evidence. [0] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/06/17/fauci-masks-n2570789 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/06/17/fauci...

They lied because they didn't want medical professionals to run out of masks

by nso95 6y ago

They lied because they didn't want medical professionals to run out of masks

Source? From what I remember the message very early on wasn't that masks don't work, it was "save the masks for the front line workers"

j8hn 6y ago
Here is a short video from the CDC in March of this year. https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889 https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889 If you search Google news for "masks" between February and March you can see where the surgeon general and others were saying that masks may increase the likelihood of infection because of touching your face.
- konjin 6y ago
  I'm glad someone spreading lies like that will be ever banned from youtube.
  - stkdump 6y ago
    Did you even watch the video? 1. He says there is no need to wear masks in public "at this time". 2. He says there is no evidence that masks protect you against infections (which is of course something that can and did change over time) 3. He mentioned that touching your face can be dangerous, not that wearing masks increases the risk. I don't think anyone disputed this then or now. That is something else than people saying now that there is no evidence that masks help, because now we have evidence.
    - konjin 6y ago
      Have you had to deal with youtube moderation? Moderators watching videos is optional.
moduspol 6y ago
FWIW: Early news about COVID-19 and criticism is much easier to find on DuckDuckGo than Google. > In an interview on Fox News' "Fox & Friends" on Monday, Adams said wearing face masks could actually increase a person's risk of contracting the coronavirus. > "You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a health care provider," Adams said. "Folks who don't know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot and actually can increase the spread of coronavirus," he added. > Adams' comments Monday reiterate his blaring tweet from the weekend, urging people to "STOP BUYING MASKS." He said that they were "NOT effective" to the general public and noted that the increased demand in masks puts medical professionals at risk. > The World Health Organization joined TikTok last week to provide accurate information about COVID-19. In one of two videos posted, it explained most people should not wear masks and provided instructions for how to properly wear one. https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-need-masks-pence-says-as-demand-increases-2020-2 https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-need-masks-pe...

gurkendoktor 6y ago

Then they should realize that noble lies will erode trust in institutions (rightly so).

mlang23 6y ago
This is probably the biggest problem. Trust in government due to bad decisions and outright lies is eroding rapidly. Worldwide. In a few months, the willingness to cooperate from citizens will be almost zero. Rightly so. If I catch someone lying for his own benefit, or not telling the truth because they think I am too stupid to understand, why should I ever listen to anything from the same person/orga again?
- makomk 6y ago
  Part of the problem is that the media keeps on misleading people about how other countries are doing in order to push the narrative that their country's government is inexplicably failing at dealing with Covid-19. For example, here in the UK (and I think the US is similar), the media and opposition have been pushing the idea that a competent government would be able to set up a working test and trace program to control the virus, like South Korea, and the fact that the UK was forced to resort to closing and restricting pubs and restaurants and limiting social interactions is proof ours is incompetent. The BBC has also been pushing the narrative that there's no evidence those kind of local lockdown measures work. In reality, of course, South Korea has been heavily reliant on precisely those kind of measures - every time they lift them and try to rely on test and trace, masks, and weaker social distancing measures, cases start increasing and they have to reimpose them. For example, take the South Korea section in this article about how Europe is failing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-54482905 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-54482905 It starts off by attributing their success to "mass testing and strict contact tracing". In reality, South Korea is testing at about a tenth the rate of a typical European country (10-20 thousand a day), doesn't routinely test people with mild potential symptoms, and has no way of reliably detecting cases that don't have links to ones they know about - which have been appearing in increasingly alarming numbers. Technically, "tests have always been easily available" as the article says, but they successfully discourage most people from getting one by charging for them under most circumstances. They don't even appear to be trying to improve this either; their testing capacity seems to be at the same level it was in like March. As for the strict contact tracing, this sentence hides a multitude of things: "the majority of people have accepted it and prioritised controlling the pandemic over their own privacy". I'm sure the people who didn't have the entire internet speculating that they were cheating on their partner, and aren't being criminalized for refusing to out themselves as gay to their homophobic employer in a country with no legal protections, and don't oppose the government, have no problem with it. Something tells me that the BBC would be infinitely less willing to put a positive spin on screwing over a minority of people like that in the name of the greater good if the UK or US government did it though. The article goes on to downplay the other restrictions. "When infections rise, stricter measures are put in place", the BBC says, but makes it sound a limited, mostly brief and long ago thing: "At one point there was a 21:00 curfew on restaurants in the capital, Seoul. But now, social distancing guidelines are back to their lowest level." In reality, they'd literally only just dropped social distancing meaures to that level and allowed bars in Seoul to reopen right before the article was published: https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southkorea/south-korea-to-tighten-social-distancing-curbs-during-two-holiday-weeks-idUKKCN26G0E5 https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southko... It's still too early to even see the effect of this on cases. That bar closure was also imposed only two weeks after the previous 9pm curfew and complete ban on indoor dining/drinking in Seoul establishments was lifted. If the UK did this, there'd be endless BBC headlines about U-turns, confusing, seemingly arbitrary measures, and speculation as to whether businesses would survive - not this kind of attempt to minimize the extent of the measures. Especially the part about night clubs reopening; South Korea has tried this at least twice and had to do almost immediate U-turns both times, and there's no reason to expect they can manage it now. I suspect the BBC would also have plenty to say about (for example) the flu vaccine screw-up if it happened in the UK: http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20201015001058 http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20201015001058 They've certainly put enough of a negative spin on the fact that the UK doesn't have enough flu vaccines immediately to deal with unprecidented demand and the implications for the fight against Covid-19, even though there's nothing the government could really do given the lead times. But because it happened in the supposedly more competent success story country, most people will never hear about it and the illusion that our government is just incompetent compared to them will remain unchallenged.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

DanBC 6y ago

Can you link to the studies that you think existed in March / April 2020 that showed that masks worked?

jjgreen 6y ago
Or since?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
SuoDuanDao 6y ago
Here you go. This guy had some trouble just after posting it btw. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-than-you-wanted-to-know/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...
- DanBC 6y ago
  I don't think this says what you think it says. > The meta-analysis itself avoided drawing any conclusions at all, and would not even admit that N95 respirators worked. I mean, either you believe the science or you don't. You don't get to complain that it didn't support your preconception. > According to intention-to-treat, the studies unanimously found masks to be useless. But there were a lot of signs that intention-to-treat wasn’t the right choice here. Not a great sign. > In other words, respirators are better than masks are better than nothing. It would be wrong to genuinely conclude this, because it’s not statistically significant. But it would also be wrong to conclude the studies show masks don’t work, because they mostly show respirators don’t work, and we (hopefully) know they do. He's a fucking idiot.

j8hn 6y ago

For a while I assumed they lied as well. Now, looking back I'm not so sure. There really wasn't much scientific evidence of masks being effective for respiratory diseases.

freeone3000 6y ago
Putting aside the knee-jerk response of "of course a mask that covers your disease holes is protection against giving other people your disease"... https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971216310104 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197121... (2016) on the role of (incidental) face coverings to prevent population-level disease at large gatherings. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190903134732.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/09/190903134732.h... (2019) on the role of personal protective equipment on stopping contraction of respiratory disease (flu). And to top it off: https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/65/11/1934/4068747 https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/65/11/1934/4068747 (2017) meta-analysis, including a controlled section on effectiveness on population face mask use to prevent the spread of SARS-CoV. We had the evidence.
blub 6y ago
No, they pretty much lied. The CDC was for example recommending n95 usage for medical personnel and surgical masks for infected people during the first SARS outbreak.
dx87 6y ago
Fauci admitted they lied because they knew there was a mask shortage, and they wanted to make sure medical personnel could get masks before the general population bought them all.
infamy_gyms_stu 6y ago
Dr Fauci has said their initial stance on masks was to ensure that masks were available for health care workers[0]. He did not say their stance changed due to new evidence. [0] https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/06/17/fauci-masks-n2570789 https://townhall.com/tipsheet/leahbarkoukis/2020/06/17/fauci...