4 ms·

"how a lot of doctors viewed masks at the beginning of the pandemic" Ok, so I've looked into the history of this a little, and most of the mask mythology seems

"how a lot of doctors viewed masks at the beginning of the pandemic" Ok, so I've looked into the history of this a little, and most of the mask mythology seems misunderstood. Prior to 2020, most medical professionals believed most viruses, and corona viruses particularly, could not be transported as aerosols. This was a subject of research where the data had not come in. About late March, it began to appear that the virus could be an aerosol. Hard results did not come in until April and May, and many in the field discovered they had egg on their faces. Conflicting advice is to be expected with new information.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
My frustration is that, here in Canada at least, there is still an outdated way of talking about the virus as if it's a surface / hand sanitation issue, and much of the public policy (especially around school openings, etc.) still seems to be ignorant of the absolutely essential role that shared air has in transmission. Public authorities have failed to really drive home the reality of the virus, and instead we get sanitation theatre, a pantomime of virus control, and parents clambering to get schools reopened (while the numbers plummet since they've been closed after Christmas) Example, a local wine shop in my small town where you are not allowed to touch the bottles, but I see the staff inside with their masks off when there's no customers in the store. Frankly, I think people really just don't _want_ to believe it's aerosol transmitted. Because the consequences for public policy would be so drastic; no malls, no factories, no schools, etc. should really be open if you admit it.
- astrange 6y ago
  It’s possible that it’s just been so long since we had a bad respiratory pandemic that medical advice assumes everything is food poisoning and norovirus, where cleaning surfaces actually does matter. But it’s also possible they’d have to admit grandma-type adages about opening the windows actually work and office buildings don’t let you do this anymore.
- cthaeh 6y ago
  If you go to ontario public health website and read their summaries on current covid papers, you'll note that the vast majority of papers come to the conclusion that schools have almost no impact on the spread of covid. But no, keep applying youre second grade logic: spreads through air-> indoor places unsafe-> CLOSE EVERYTHING. That's not to say some of it isn't security theater (ie my parents were washing cookie boxes with soap some a couple of months ago), but those measures aren't being driven by the public health, but rather the unrelenting fear mongering of the media.
astrange 6y ago
> Prior to 2020, most medical professionals believed most viruses, and corona viruses particularly, could not be transported as aerosols. That’s most American medical professionals. And they mostly seemed to believe you would get yourself sick faster by touching your eyes after taking the mask off wrong, or that masks provided 0% protection unless you wore an N95 with a fit test, or that if they didn’t lie about them being useless people would steal them from hospitals. They certainly didn’t believe they were truly useless, since they were all wearing them for procedures. Actually, wasn’t the excuse for suddenly being like “face masks are good actually” that they didn’t know COVID had asymptomatic spread before then? That’s even worse than not knowing it spread through aerosols. > This was a subject of research where the data had not come in. By using the technique of “not assuming all of Asia is primitive and superstitious”, it was easy to figure out what to do without an RCT. Note there isn’t evidence that surgical masks help during surgery either.
kevstev 6y ago
Yeah, I think what a lot of people going on TV failed to really express is that there was so much unknown about this new virus, that this is the best information we have to go on RIGHT NOW. And then when that changed, they didn't make it explicit enough that they were changing their advice based on NEW DATA. Partially this is just the soundbite driven media, where even if it was explained, that often doesn't make the 10 second clip replayed. My company had a zoom conference with a very well respected British doctor, he won something more or less equivalent to a nobel prize in mediciine, and he told my company, on May 4th, that masks are not necessary. This was already a bit head scratching, but what I feel he probably meant, but certainly did not explicitly say- is that its not a priority for an individual to wear a mask when there are shortages for front line workers. But mix a changing message with an inbred resistance to being told what to do and the inconvenience of a mask, and this comes out the end for many as "They don't know what they are talking about these "experts!", I don't need to listen to them, they can't get their story straight!" and here we are...
- edbob 6y ago
  > My company had a zoom conference with a very well respected British doctor, he won something more or less equivalent to a nobel prize in mediciine, and he told my company, on May 4th, that masks are not necessary. This was already a bit head scratching, but what I feel he probably meant, but certainly did not explicitly say- is that its not a priority for an individual to wear a mask when there are shortages for front line workers. This comes off as blatantly lying to us for our harm, not "they don't know what they're talking about". If someone lies to you and knowingly puts your life at risk through the lie, it's very rational not to believe anything they say in the future. This is not mere mixed messages. If government and/or experts want to have non-negative credibility, they are going to have to start consistently telling the whole truth.
cactus2093 6y ago
Do you have sources for your claims? I've also looked into it a little and come to the opposite conclusion. Here is one study from Singapore in 2014 that showed surgical and n95 have about a 68% and 95% efficacy respectively at preventing SARS transmission https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293989/ Masks have also been shown to provide protection against the common cold (many strains of which are also coronaviruses) and seasonal flus https://www.livescience.com/7661-masks-protect-colds-flu.html https://www.livescience.com/7661-masks-protect-colds-flu.htm... In the absence of more specific information about SARS-COV-2 early in the pandemic, surely it would have made sense to default to using the preventative measures that were known to be effective at controlling SARS and other known respiratory diseases? Especially when these measures come with no real risks. It's true that they didn't know with 100% certainty, and China's misinformation about human to human spread in the beginning and not allowing the CDC team in early to investigate certainly didn't help either. Maybe these experts, including Dr Fauci, the CDC, and WHO, just made what turned out to be very bad judgement calls and they honestly thought that masks wouldn't prevent the spread of the disease. But by far the likeliest explanation in my mind is that these institutions knowingly lied to the public in an attempt to manipulate people into not buying masks, and I still find that to be absolutely unconscionable.
- mcguire 6y ago
  Here's my previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25738200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25738200 https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3707-y https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s128... [2019] "In summary, despite the various mechanistic arguments about which organisms can be potentially airborne and therefore aerosol-transmissible, ultimately, the main deciding factor appears to be how many studies using various differing approaches: empirical (clinical, epidemiological), and/or experimental (e.g. using animal models), and/or mechanistic (using airflow tracers and air-sampling) methods, reach the same consensus opinion. Over time, the scientific community will eventually form an impression of the predominant transmission route for that specific agent, even if the conclusion is one of mixed transmission routes, with different routes predominating depending on the specific situations. This is the case for influenza viruses, and is likely the most realistic."

cmrdporcupine 6y ago

My frustration is that, here in Canada at least, there is still an outdated way of talking about the virus as if it's a surface / hand sanitation issue, and much of the public policy (especially around school openings, etc.) still seems to be ignorant of the absolutely essential role that shared air has in transmission. Public authorities have failed to really drive home the reality of the virus, and instead we get sanitation theatre, a pantomime of virus control, and parents clambering to get schools reopened (while the numbers plummet since they've been closed after Christmas) Example, a local wine shop in my small town where you are not allowed to touch the bottles, but I see the staff inside with their masks off when there's no customers in the store. Frankly, I think people really just don't _want_ to believe it's aerosol transmitted. Because the consequences for public policy would be so drastic; no malls, no factories, no schools, etc. should really be open if you admit it.

astrange 6y ago
It’s possible that it’s just been so long since we had a bad respiratory pandemic that medical advice assumes everything is food poisoning and norovirus, where cleaning surfaces actually does matter. But it’s also possible they’d have to admit grandma-type adages about opening the windows actually work and office buildings don’t let you do this anymore.
cthaeh 6y ago
If you go to ontario public health website and read their summaries on current covid papers, you'll note that the vast majority of papers come to the conclusion that schools have almost no impact on the spread of covid. But no, keep applying youre second grade logic: spreads through air-> indoor places unsafe-> CLOSE EVERYTHING. That's not to say some of it isn't security theater (ie my parents were washing cookie boxes with soap some a couple of months ago), but those measures aren't being driven by the public health, but rather the unrelenting fear mongering of the media.

astrange 6y ago

> Prior to 2020, most medical professionals believed most viruses, and corona viruses particularly, could not be transported as aerosols. That’s most American medical professionals. And they mostly seemed to believe you would get yourself sick faster by touching your eyes after taking the mask off wrong, or that masks provided 0% protection unless you wore an N95 with a fit test, or that if they didn’t lie about them being useless people would steal them from hospitals. They certainly didn’t believe they were truly useless, since they were all wearing them for procedures. Actually, wasn’t the excuse for suddenly being like “face masks are good actually” that they didn’t know COVID had asymptomatic spread before then? That’s even worse than not knowing it spread through aerosols. > This was a subject of research where the data had not come in. By using the technique of “not assuming all of Asia is primitive and superstitious”, it was easy to figure out what to do without an RCT. Note there isn’t evidence that surgical masks help during surgery either.

kevstev 6y ago

Yeah, I think what a lot of people going on TV failed to really express is that there was so much unknown about this new virus, that this is the best information we have to go on RIGHT NOW. And then when that changed, they didn't make it explicit enough that they were changing their advice based on NEW DATA. Partially this is just the soundbite driven media, where even if it was explained, that often doesn't make the 10 second clip replayed. My company had a zoom conference with a very well respected British doctor, he won something more or less equivalent to a nobel prize in mediciine, and he told my company, on May 4th, that masks are not necessary. This was already a bit head scratching, but what I feel he probably meant, but certainly did not explicitly say- is that its not a priority for an individual to wear a mask when there are shortages for front line workers. But mix a changing message with an inbred resistance to being told what to do and the inconvenience of a mask, and this comes out the end for many as "They don't know what they are talking about these "experts!", I don't need to listen to them, they can't get their story straight!" and here we are...

edbob 6y ago
> My company had a zoom conference with a very well respected British doctor, he won something more or less equivalent to a nobel prize in mediciine, and he told my company, on May 4th, that masks are not necessary. This was already a bit head scratching, but what I feel he probably meant, but certainly did not explicitly say- is that its not a priority for an individual to wear a mask when there are shortages for front line workers. This comes off as blatantly lying to us for our harm, not "they don't know what they're talking about". If someone lies to you and knowingly puts your life at risk through the lie, it's very rational not to believe anything they say in the future. This is not mere mixed messages. If government and/or experts want to have non-negative credibility, they are going to have to start consistently telling the whole truth.

cactus2093 6y ago

Do you have sources for your claims? I've also looked into it a little and come to the opposite conclusion. Here is one study from Singapore in 2014 that showed surgical and n95 have about a 68% and 95% efficacy respectively at preventing SARS transmission https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293989/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4293989/ Masks have also been shown to provide protection against the common cold (many strains of which are also coronaviruses) and seasonal flus https://www.livescience.com/7661-masks-protect-colds-flu.html https://www.livescience.com/7661-masks-protect-colds-flu.htm... In the absence of more specific information about SARS-COV-2 early in the pandemic, surely it would have made sense to default to using the preventative measures that were known to be effective at controlling SARS and other known respiratory diseases? Especially when these measures come with no real risks. It's true that they didn't know with 100% certainty, and China's misinformation about human to human spread in the beginning and not allowing the CDC team in early to investigate certainly didn't help either. Maybe these experts, including Dr Fauci, the CDC, and WHO, just made what turned out to be very bad judgement calls and they honestly thought that masks wouldn't prevent the spread of the disease. But by far the likeliest explanation in my mind is that these institutions knowingly lied to the public in an attempt to manipulate people into not buying masks, and I still find that to be absolutely unconscionable.

mcguire 6y ago
Here's my previous comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25738200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25738200 https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-019-3707-y https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s128... [2019] "In summary, despite the various mechanistic arguments about which organisms can be potentially airborne and therefore aerosol-transmissible, ultimately, the main deciding factor appears to be how many studies using various differing approaches: empirical (clinical, epidemiological), and/or experimental (e.g. using animal models), and/or mechanistic (using airflow tracers and air-sampling) methods, reach the same consensus opinion. Over time, the scientific community will eventually form an impression of the predominant transmission route for that specific agent, even if the conclusion is one of mixed transmission routes, with different routes predominating depending on the specific situations. This is the case for influenza viruses, and is likely the most realistic."