10 ms·

You are a star and a titan, and I hold incredible respect for what you've given to the world. Understand however that you casting aspersions upon a man leading

by pen2l 6y ago

You are a star and a titan, and I hold incredible respect for what you've given to the world. Understand however that you casting aspersions upon a man leading the fight against this pandemic isn't a constructive thing to do. Back when he was iffy about masks in that 60minutes interview, it was because there was actual concern that frontline medical staff might not have enough for themselves. He revised his stance on what public policy should be in an evolving situation as he well should. He's one of the people leading this battle now, and for this battle to be won the public has to have trust in him, the public has to listen to him when he says wear masks, get vaccinated, etc. For folks in NIH and sciences, he's long been known to be a man of integrity, no doubt his scientific output has been pristine, no doubt he's the man for this job, yes that whole bout with the masks was an unfortunate happening, and I think I even agree he did not handle that situation in the most ideal way, but you're smart enough to know what a mucky situation that was and he deserves a pass for that. edit: I misread you. You're still arguing against mask-wearing as public policy. Come on man, what is going on here? This is not up for debate, there is strong consensus from just about all medical scientists and medical organizations that mask-wearing is very important and effective in fighting coronavirus. Please give this a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_masks_during_the_COVID-19_pandemic#Efficacy_studies_for_COVID-19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_masks_during_the_COVID-19... Numerous prestigious peer-reviewed journals have confirmed this studies. There is no conspiracy here. Masks work. It is dangerous for you to say otherwise with the platform you command.

itbeho 6y ago
> for this battle to be won the public has to have trust in him But many don't, for reasons of Fauci's own making. You can't rally people around a person that lies and flip-flops on issues as important as this.
- dwd 6y ago
  The problem is that truth is always nuanced and never as simple as it needs to be to get a clear message out. It's fluid and a lot of people don't understand it can and will change - or worse conditioned to think changing your opinion due to changing or additional facts is flip-flopping and therefore bad. The problem is that to keep it simple you have to omit information and sometimes lie to get the needed outcome and sometime not correct incorrect but not harmful advice to keep it simple. But I do think they screwed up with the early mask advice. With masks, they are not effective protection if it's just you wearing the mask - but there is some value when everyone does. They should have mandated wearing masks from the start like in Taiwan, Singapore, HK. Simple.
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    I agree that Taiwan has done an exceptional job, but we weren't required to wear masks anywhere outside mass transit and some privately owned establishments until very recently when there was a spike in infected nationals returning. Now, we wear masks in most indoor commercial places, excluding dining areas. For the most part, all of last year was just life as usual. There have been large outdoor events, including a marathon in December with 28000 participants.
    - dwd 6y ago
      I'm in Brisbane, Australia and we only had mandatory mask wearing recently due to someone testing positive to the UK variant. Been life as usual more or for six months, but that's the advantage of getting it under control early so the contact tracing isn't overwhelmed each time there's an outbreak.
BrendanEich 6y ago
On Fauci, see https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1342752109486166016 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1342752109486166016 among other tweets from me naming him. I think Fauci fell a beat behind the narrative marching band in March when he said no to masks for the general population, and so had to make up a dumb story in June about how he nobly lied to save PPE for frontline workers in March. This is obviously false (HCWs wear fitted N95 or better masks, must maintain and keep both good fit and a working backup; these masks are not for gen-pop) and still bad for credibility (lying for the greater good is lying, and the greater good story of PPE conservation was itself a lie). Fauci is a dishonest careerist who has harmed many people over decades and misspent huge budgets. Larry Kramer knew this. Kary Mullis agreed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtgUGxxzB_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtgUGxxzB_c. On masks, see https://rationalground.com/mask-studies https://rationalground.com/mask-studies and read the linked papers yourself, don't rely on Wikipedia. The Danish RCT was held up for political reasons (https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594 https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594), then published only with some weasel words added as quote-bait to deflect from the actual results: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817. Coronaviruses show strong latitude-dependent seasonality per Hope-Simpson's pioneering work on respiratory viruses. NPIs don't much affect disease progression. Correlation is not causation but anti-correlation is a big problem for those arguing masks help: https://rationalground.com/mask-charts/ https://rationalground.com/mask-charts/ https://rationalground.com/more-mask-charts/ https://rationalground.com/more-mask-charts/ I'm old, and per the CDC's estimated age-cohort IFR (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... — see Scenario 5 column, note IFR figures there are per unum not percentages), therefore more at risk of death from Covid-19. I wear a mask in any bad, mixed, or unknown-quality indoor air environment. This is my risk analysis and my choice, not yours. I don't wear outdoors and no one should, all contact tracing studies I've read agree on this (so do the many hypocritical politicians who've gone maskless without fear). So I object to gray-area-legal mandates for all, especially for young people. The policy reversal on masks last spring was not based on new science. It was in part a big rip-off (Newsom paid 4x and spent >$1B of the California taxpayers' money, this was obviously skimmed here before net-settled to China), and in large part a compliance exercise. That you jump into HN to police my dissenting stance is frankly worse in my view than Fauci being a corrupt careerist. I expect better from hackers and engineers.

by pen2l 6y ago

itbeho 6y ago

> for this battle to be won the public has to have trust in him But many don't, for reasons of Fauci's own making. You can't rally people around a person that lies and flip-flops on issues as important as this.

dwd 6y ago
The problem is that truth is always nuanced and never as simple as it needs to be to get a clear message out. It's fluid and a lot of people don't understand it can and will change - or worse conditioned to think changing your opinion due to changing or additional facts is flip-flopping and therefore bad. The problem is that to keep it simple you have to omit information and sometimes lie to get the needed outcome and sometime not correct incorrect but not harmful advice to keep it simple. But I do think they screwed up with the early mask advice. With masks, they are not effective protection if it's just you wearing the mask - but there is some value when everyone does. They should have mandated wearing masks from the start like in Taiwan, Singapore, HK. Simple.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  I agree that Taiwan has done an exceptional job, but we weren't required to wear masks anywhere outside mass transit and some privately owned establishments until very recently when there was a spike in infected nationals returning. Now, we wear masks in most indoor commercial places, excluding dining areas. For the most part, all of last year was just life as usual. There have been large outdoor events, including a marathon in December with 28000 participants.
  - dwd 6y ago
    I'm in Brisbane, Australia and we only had mandatory mask wearing recently due to someone testing positive to the UK variant. Been life as usual more or for six months, but that's the advantage of getting it under control early so the contact tracing isn't overwhelmed each time there's an outbreak.

BrendanEich 6y ago

On Fauci, see https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1342752109486166016 https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1342752109486166016 among other tweets from me naming him. I think Fauci fell a beat behind the narrative marching band in March when he said no to masks for the general population, and so had to make up a dumb story in June about how he nobly lied to save PPE for frontline workers in March. This is obviously false (HCWs wear fitted N95 or better masks, must maintain and keep both good fit and a working backup; these masks are not for gen-pop) and still bad for credibility (lying for the greater good is lying, and the greater good story of PPE conservation was itself a lie). Fauci is a dishonest careerist who has harmed many people over decades and misspent huge budgets. Larry Kramer knew this. Kary Mullis agreed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtgUGxxzB_c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtgUGxxzB_c. On masks, see https://rationalground.com/mask-studies https://rationalground.com/mask-studies and read the linked papers yourself, don't rely on Wikipedia. The Danish RCT was held up for political reasons (https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594 https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1317875526997102594), then published only with some weasel words added as quote-bait to deflect from the actual results: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817 https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817. Coronaviruses show strong latitude-dependent seasonality per Hope-Simpson's pioneering work on respiratory viruses. NPIs don't much affect disease progression. Correlation is not causation but anti-correlation is a big problem for those arguing masks help: https://rationalground.com/mask-charts/ https://rationalground.com/mask-charts/ https://rationalground.com/more-mask-charts/ https://rationalground.com/more-mask-charts/ I'm old, and per the CDC's estimated age-cohort IFR (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scena... — see Scenario 5 column, note IFR figures there are per unum not percentages), therefore more at risk of death from Covid-19. I wear a mask in any bad, mixed, or unknown-quality indoor air environment. This is my risk analysis and my choice, not yours. I don't wear outdoors and no one should, all contact tracing studies I've read agree on this (so do the many hypocritical politicians who've gone maskless without fear). So I object to gray-area-legal mandates for all, especially for young people. The policy reversal on masks last spring was not based on new science. It was in part a big rip-off (Newsom paid 4x and spent >$1B of the California taxpayers' money, this was obviously skimmed here before net-settled to China), and in large part a compliance exercise. That you jump into HN to police my dissenting stance is frankly worse in my view than Fauci being a corrupt careerist. I expect better from hackers and engineers.