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> They lied to the public about how ineffective masks are to make sure there is enough stock for healthcare workers. Except they didn't. What they said that th

> They lied to the public about how ineffective masks are to make sure there is enough stock for healthcare workers. Except they didn't. What they said that the odds of you getting infected were not substantially changed by you wearing a mask in general, but they were substantially changed for people in high risk situations, like healthcare workers. That became less and less true as more and more people became infected, so the basal chances of you getting exposed, and therefore the impact of wearing a mask, changed.

systemvoltage 6y ago
> "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! http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm" ^ US Surgeon General official tweet which was then deleted. Source, Google cached version, google "US Surgeon General tweet masks".
- okaram 6y ago
  I'm not sure where you're trying to link, but your bitly takes me to a cdc page, not to that tweet, which basically makes me discard your argument
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    These are not my words, including the bitly link. This is verbatim tweet from the US Surgeon General. I added quote marks to clarify this. The original tweet has been deleted. The bitly link was part of the original tweet.
- cbsmith 6y ago
  See, this is the joy of PR BS. Context gets changed to mislead people, and the wrong people get blamed.
  - cbsmith 6y ago
    ...and I see that my original comment was down voted as a consequence. What's real doesn't matter as compared to what is believed.
pmiller2 6y ago
Where did you see that? What I remember seeing from the WHO and CDC was that wearing a mask wouldn't prevent you from catching the disease, period.
- cbsmith 6y ago
  It won't prevent you from getting the disease. It will lower risk, particularly of you giving the disease to other people.
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    Useless pedantry, and wrong, to boot. Given a low enough baseline exposure to the virus, which would otherwise cause disease, it certainly is possible that wearing a medical grade mask could lower one's exposure sufficiently to not get the disease. One may still be exposed to the virus, but, given the reduced viral load, one may not experience symptoms.
    - cbsmith 6y ago
      Not useless pedantry, particularly given the context and what was observed to have happened. These are technical terms and they have specific meanings, and the context was provided in the communications. There was a genuine concern that people would not only consume the supply of mask product, but also that they'd think they were safe because they had a mask on, and then proceed to ignore other safety guidelines, thinking they were safe. This in fact happens every day right now, but you know... it's just pedantry. Again, if you look at the CDC statements, they are consistent with this. They said it could reduce the risk of spreading or contracting the disease (and the specifics of how that might work were not as well understood at the time), but that it would NOT prevent either of those scenarios. If you think about it, communicating that "they don't work at all" but "we have to keep a stockpile of them for the people at highest risk" doesn't make any sense. It's not what happened.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

systemvoltage 6y ago

> "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! http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm http://bit.ly/37Ay6Cm" ^ US Surgeon General official tweet which was then deleted. Source, Google cached version, google "US Surgeon General tweet masks".

okaram 6y ago
I'm not sure where you're trying to link, but your bitly takes me to a cdc page, not to that tweet, which basically makes me discard your argument
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  These are not my words, including the bitly link. This is verbatim tweet from the US Surgeon General. I added quote marks to clarify this. The original tweet has been deleted. The bitly link was part of the original tweet.
cbsmith 6y ago
See, this is the joy of PR BS. Context gets changed to mislead people, and the wrong people get blamed.
- cbsmith 6y ago
  ...and I see that my original comment was down voted as a consequence. What's real doesn't matter as compared to what is believed.

pmiller2 6y ago

Where did you see that? What I remember seeing from the WHO and CDC was that wearing a mask wouldn't prevent you from catching the disease, period.

cbsmith 6y ago
It won't prevent you from getting the disease. It will lower risk, particularly of you giving the disease to other people.
- pmiller2 6y ago
  Useless pedantry, and wrong, to boot. Given a low enough baseline exposure to the virus, which would otherwise cause disease, it certainly is possible that wearing a medical grade mask could lower one's exposure sufficiently to not get the disease. One may still be exposed to the virus, but, given the reduced viral load, one may not experience symptoms.
  - cbsmith 6y ago
    Not useless pedantry, particularly given the context and what was observed to have happened. These are technical terms and they have specific meanings, and the context was provided in the communications. There was a genuine concern that people would not only consume the supply of mask product, but also that they'd think they were safe because they had a mask on, and then proceed to ignore other safety guidelines, thinking they were safe. This in fact happens every day right now, but you know... it's just pedantry. Again, if you look at the CDC statements, they are consistent with this. They said it could reduce the risk of spreading or contracting the disease (and the specifics of how that might work were not as well understood at the time), but that it would NOT prevent either of those scenarios. If you think about it, communicating that "they don't work at all" but "we have to keep a stockpile of them for the people at highest risk" doesn't make any sense. It's not what happened.

deleted 6y ago

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