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AFAICT at the beginning of the pandemic, we were very much in "not proven" territory with masks. There was a lively debate ablut whether they provided much prot

by Nursie 6y ago

AFAICT at the beginning of the pandemic, we were very much in "not proven" territory with masks. There was a lively debate ablut whether they provided much protection (and there still is, we mostly wear them to protect others from us, not for ourselves, again AFAICT). Is it possible they were just wrong?

systemvoltage 6y ago
Masks can ONLY help. They're not going to make it more likely to catch COVID even if there was no proven effectiveness. Basic logic and years of masks development (used in hospitals for over 100 years) should tell us that they do something. They're not useless.
- Nursie 6y ago
  Depends on the material - fleece actually can increase transmission. And potentially poor mask handling and discipline could have made transmission worse. We more or less know this isn't the case now, but didn't then. So yes, it actually could make things worse.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    This was never expressed by the authorities, they should explain. It is a pretty iffy claim and with such a claim, you gotta have some data that invalidates decades of mask usage in hospitals.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Hospitals don't use fleece. Saying that the material has an enormous impact on effectiveness doesn't invalidate anything. I mean, that's why N95 masks are so complicated and different from surgical masks, because material matters so much.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- greggman3 6y ago
  If they were ineffective but people thought they were effective they'd act like they were effective and go do things that would get them infected, falsely believing the mask would protect them. They appear to have turned out to be effective (FYI: I've warn masks every time I've been outside since 2020/3/16 so I'm certainly on the side of masks) Will you downvote this because it shows a logical flaw, not a judgement, but it you probably disagree with it?
rightbyte 6y ago
The status quo was no mask recommendation. I have no idea why this change of policy is spurring so much feelings.
twblalock 6y ago
The fact that hospital workers were desperate for masks, to the extent that they were making their own out of household materials when they couldn't get real ones, tells you all you need to know. Anyone with a brain cell in their head could see that the government's messaging on masks made no sense. This reduced public trust in the government's other public health announcements.
laverya 6y ago
"Not proven" in the same sense that parachutes are not proven to protect people jumping out of planes, in that it's pretty obvious that they do but no one's done a double blind study. As it happens, people have since done studies. (Not double blind, though)
geofft 6y ago
That's my memory too - at least in terms of public messaging, there was a lot of "wash your hands for 20 seconds" and "it takes two weeks for the virus to die on surfaces" and so forth, which is largely irrelevant given what we know now about transmission. We also had a significant shortage of hand sanitizer and soap, and e.g. New York's slave laborers were put to work making hand sanitizer, but there was no "hand sanitizer doesn't work" PSA, even though hospitals needed it badly too. The fact that they said untruthful information about masks was awful, and it certainly deserves a proper postmortem-in-the-court-of-public-opinion, but I don't think it was deliberate lying.
- wallacoloo 6y ago
  > I don't think it was deliberate lying. At the onset, hospitals needed PPE, which includes masks. I remember there being messaging encouraging ordinary citizens not to stockpile N95 masks because hospitals needed the supply instead. If anybody in this same camp was telling the public that N95 masks aren’t effective then that’s an obvious contradiction, a lie. Anyway, lies and inconsistent messaging both degrade trust, which is a big problem at this moment.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > That's my memory too - at least in terms of public messaging, there was a lot of "wash your hands for 20 seconds" and "it takes two weeks for the virus to die on surfaces" and so forth, which is largely irrelevant given what we know now about transmission. It's not so much now but that actual infectious disease specialists aren't being completely drowned out by people who should have known to keep their mouth shut. Seriously John Cochrane has an excuse, he's from the grifter school of economics and a dummy. Doctors, biologists, etc without specific training in infectious disease should have known better.
contravariant 6y ago
Surgical masks weren't in "not proven" territory at any point. Okay there might be some error bars left, but they are generally considered helpful. To the best of my knowledge no government has even attempted to deny this (which would be silly since half the airtime was people in surgical masks running around in Covid wards). These however were in limited supply. The effectiveness of other masks was not so much "not proven" but to the extent that the lack of any standard allows you to say anything about them they just aren't anywhere near as good. In my mind their effectiveness in combating the pandemic is still well within 'not-proven' territory, but since this is somehow a partisan issue in the U.S. I'll limit myself to just saying that they shouldn't be considered a replacement for social distancing.
- cbsmith 6y ago
  > Surgical masks weren't in "not proven" territory at any point. Sure they were. At some points we weren't even sure if n95 masks did much.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Surgical and N95 masks were proven against other coronaviruses.
    - cbsmith 6y ago
      Right... just as N95 masks were proven against other non-coronaviruses. Of course n95 masks only prevent entry through the mouth and nose, and particularly at the time we had reason to think those were other points of entry. So, saying that they were "proven" to work against SARS-CoV-2 at the time was simply false.
0-_-0 6y ago
Not really, the CDC tweet said that they are ineffective at preventing covid in the general public but necessary for health workers in literally the same sentence: "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"
- Nursie 6y ago
  There was, as far as I can tell, little evidence at the time that the general public wearing them was effective at stopping transmission, and there were worries that poorly fitted masks and poor mask discipline could actually make things worse. There are logical ways in which it can be true that they are useful for health workers but not for the public. We know they aren't correct now, of course, as there is now evidence.
  - 0-_-0 6y ago
    That's not what the tweet said though. It said that they are not effective, with a capitalised "NOT". It's as clear as day that they were deliberately misleading the public.

by Nursie 6y ago

systemvoltage 6y ago

Masks can ONLY help. They're not going to make it more likely to catch COVID even if there was no proven effectiveness. Basic logic and years of masks development (used in hospitals for over 100 years) should tell us that they do something. They're not useless.

Nursie 6y ago
Depends on the material - fleece actually can increase transmission. And potentially poor mask handling and discipline could have made transmission worse. We more or less know this isn't the case now, but didn't then. So yes, it actually could make things worse.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  This was never expressed by the authorities, they should explain. It is a pretty iffy claim and with such a claim, you gotta have some data that invalidates decades of mask usage in hospitals.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Hospitals don't use fleece. Saying that the material has an enormous impact on effectiveness doesn't invalidate anything. I mean, that's why N95 masks are so complicated and different from surgical masks, because material matters so much.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
greggman3 6y ago
If they were ineffective but people thought they were effective they'd act like they were effective and go do things that would get them infected, falsely believing the mask would protect them. They appear to have turned out to be effective (FYI: I've warn masks every time I've been outside since 2020/3/16 so I'm certainly on the side of masks) Will you downvote this because it shows a logical flaw, not a judgement, but it you probably disagree with it?

rightbyte 6y ago

The status quo was no mask recommendation. I have no idea why this change of policy is spurring so much feelings.

twblalock 6y ago

The fact that hospital workers were desperate for masks, to the extent that they were making their own out of household materials when they couldn't get real ones, tells you all you need to know. Anyone with a brain cell in their head could see that the government's messaging on masks made no sense. This reduced public trust in the government's other public health announcements.

laverya 6y ago

"Not proven" in the same sense that parachutes are not proven to protect people jumping out of planes, in that it's pretty obvious that they do but no one's done a double blind study. As it happens, people have since done studies. (Not double blind, though)

geofft 6y ago

That's my memory too - at least in terms of public messaging, there was a lot of "wash your hands for 20 seconds" and "it takes two weeks for the virus to die on surfaces" and so forth, which is largely irrelevant given what we know now about transmission. We also had a significant shortage of hand sanitizer and soap, and e.g. New York's slave laborers were put to work making hand sanitizer, but there was no "hand sanitizer doesn't work" PSA, even though hospitals needed it badly too. The fact that they said untruthful information about masks was awful, and it certainly deserves a proper postmortem-in-the-court-of-public-opinion, but I don't think it was deliberate lying.

wallacoloo 6y ago
> I don't think it was deliberate lying. At the onset, hospitals needed PPE, which includes masks. I remember there being messaging encouraging ordinary citizens not to stockpile N95 masks because hospitals needed the supply instead. If anybody in this same camp was telling the public that N95 masks aren’t effective then that’s an obvious contradiction, a lie. Anyway, lies and inconsistent messaging both degrade trust, which is a big problem at this moment.
Gibbon1 6y ago
> That's my memory too - at least in terms of public messaging, there was a lot of "wash your hands for 20 seconds" and "it takes two weeks for the virus to die on surfaces" and so forth, which is largely irrelevant given what we know now about transmission. It's not so much now but that actual infectious disease specialists aren't being completely drowned out by people who should have known to keep their mouth shut. Seriously John Cochrane has an excuse, he's from the grifter school of economics and a dummy. Doctors, biologists, etc without specific training in infectious disease should have known better.

contravariant 6y ago

Surgical masks weren't in "not proven" territory at any point. Okay there might be some error bars left, but they are generally considered helpful. To the best of my knowledge no government has even attempted to deny this (which would be silly since half the airtime was people in surgical masks running around in Covid wards). These however were in limited supply. The effectiveness of other masks was not so much "not proven" but to the extent that the lack of any standard allows you to say anything about them they just aren't anywhere near as good. In my mind their effectiveness in combating the pandemic is still well within 'not-proven' territory, but since this is somehow a partisan issue in the U.S. I'll limit myself to just saying that they shouldn't be considered a replacement for social distancing.

cbsmith 6y ago
> Surgical masks weren't in "not proven" territory at any point. Sure they were. At some points we weren't even sure if n95 masks did much.
- pseudalopex 6y ago
  Surgical and N95 masks were proven against other coronaviruses.
  - cbsmith 6y ago
    Right... just as N95 masks were proven against other non-coronaviruses. Of course n95 masks only prevent entry through the mouth and nose, and particularly at the time we had reason to think those were other points of entry. So, saying that they were "proven" to work against SARS-CoV-2 at the time was simply false.

0-_-0 6y ago

Not really, the CDC tweet said that they are ineffective at preventing covid in the general public but necessary for health workers in literally the same sentence: "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"

Nursie 6y ago
There was, as far as I can tell, little evidence at the time that the general public wearing them was effective at stopping transmission, and there were worries that poorly fitted masks and poor mask discipline could actually make things worse. There are logical ways in which it can be true that they are useful for health workers but not for the public. We know they aren't correct now, of course, as there is now evidence.
- 0-_-0 6y ago
  That's not what the tweet said though. It said that they are not effective, with a capitalised "NOT". It's as clear as day that they were deliberately misleading the public.