3 ms·

> Their messaging at the time was "masks aren't effective, plus we need them for healthcare workers to care for pandemic patients". If they're not effective, w

by DanBC 5y ago

> Their messaging at the time was "masks aren't effective, plus we need them for healthcare workers to care for pandemic patients". If they're not effective, why would healthcare workers need them? Isn't it simple statistics? If you're on a ward with 10 people who are ill and coughing at you you'll need a mask. If you're walking about in the street, not getting closer than 2m to anyone, and not spending much time in close proximity to anyone, the mask isn't doing much.

wutbrodo 5y ago
> Isn't it simple statistics? If you're on a ward with 10 people who are ill and coughing at you you'll need a mask. I addressed this in my comment: > Higher viral loads [and longer exposure] put you at higher risk, but the messaging decidedly wasn't that masks are only protective at high viral loads. Let alone the incredibly basic prior on respiratory diseases' vector being limited by _covering up the sources of spread_. "Medical workers need masks more because they have more exposure" is not the same thing as "masks don't work for the general public", and brazenly and badly lying to the public has costs that have been demonstrable throughout the pandemic (helped along by our dear insane President over the course of the pandemic). > If you're walking about in the street, not getting closer than 2m to anyone, and not spending much time in close proximity to anyone, the mask isn't doing much. This is a general-purpose argument which explains away the existence of community spread, which we know was happening (33m US cases later...). Especially given what we now know about air vs surface transmission, people were clearly spreading it to each other last spring in ways that masks would have mitigated. Knowing what we now know about the difficulty of outdoor spread, people by definition were not universally adhering to what you're describing. Leaving aside the non-compliant (some portion of whom would have worn masks despite violating indoor gathering guidelines), many people were unable to avoid this: nursing homes, grocery stores, meatpacking plants, and all manner of essential workers[1] were clearly enough to drive robust spread. [1] Here's a list of just how expansive the "essential worker" category was in NYS: https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2020/03/new-york-state-mandates-that-non-essential-workers-must-stay-home/#:~:text=New%20York%20State%20Mandates%20That%20Non%2DEssential%20Workers%20Must%20Stay%20Home,-By%20Arielle%20E&text=Beginning%20Sunday%2C%20March%2022%2C%202020,utilize%20an%20in%2Dperson%20workforce https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2020/03/new-york-state-ma.... (Note that I don't mean that as a criticism, just a note that your postulated world of 100% of people never coming within 2m of anyone, including outside, is not reflective of reality)
- DanBC 5y ago
  > This is a general-purpose argument which explains away the existence of community spread, But that wasn't people waking past each other in the street, that was people working with each other in poorly ventilated spaces. Public health officials during the early stages fully expected all the other recommendations they were making to be taken up: proper lockdowns, vigorous test and trace with good quality supported isolation. If you're looking at "late lockdown with poor test and trace" then yes, you're right, not pushing masks doesn't make much sense. But it's odd to focus on the mask advice and not the late lockdowns.
  - wutbrodo 5y ago
    > But that wasn't people waking past each other in the street, that was people working with each other in poorly ventilated spaces. Yes, this is my point. There were tons of people (most people?) who didn't/couldn't live their lives without coming into contact with other people's spread, and these people were not recommended to wear masks either. This was particularly true in the beginning of the pandemic, when the non-scientifically-literate and non-digital-natives had yet to adapt to which behaviors were safe[1]. Masks were a simple, common-sense, zero-cost recommendation which predictably ended up being sound. > Public health officials during the early stages fully expected all the other recommendations they were making to be taken up: proper lockdowns, vigorous test and trace with good quality supported isolation. If you don't see this as gross incompetence, I don't know what to tell you. Assuming perfect compliance with specific measures and throwing defense in depth out of the window is shockingly stupid from multiple perspectives: scientifically, epistemically, > it's odd to focus on the mask advice and not the late lockdowns. I don't know anyone who defends locking down late. I know plenty of people who defend the severe and constant failures of our public health authorities. It's a much more interesting topic with much more profound implications. What's particularly fascinating about it is the _manner_ in which people defend these failures: Talk to a dozen people, and you'll get 13 highly-confident, mutually-contradictory and individually weak excuses. It strongly suggests to me that there's some weird psychological underpinning to this behavior, and that the expressed excuses are just window dressing. (To be clear, I don't intend this as a jab against you, but as a phenomenon that's interesting in the aggregate. Your comments in particular are more thoughtful than most I come across on this topic) [1] In the very early, high-uncertainty days of the pandemic, I had a (highly-educated and successful) uncle in his late 70s tell me not to get takeout and to wipe it down thoroughly if I did, right before saying that he only ever left the house to go to the _grocery store_. I tried telling him he had it precisely backwards (yes, this was clear from the evidence even that early), but his model stuck in his mind like a superstition and fear is a strong deterrent to changing one's mind.

by DanBC 5y ago

wutbrodo 5y ago

> Isn't it simple statistics? If you're on a ward with 10 people who are ill and coughing at you you'll need a mask. I addressed this in my comment: > Higher viral loads [and longer exposure] put you at higher risk, but the messaging decidedly wasn't that masks are only protective at high viral loads. Let alone the incredibly basic prior on respiratory diseases' vector being limited by _covering up the sources of spread_. "Medical workers need masks more because they have more exposure" is not the same thing as "masks don't work for the general public", and brazenly and badly lying to the public has costs that have been demonstrable throughout the pandemic (helped along by our dear insane President over the course of the pandemic). > If you're walking about in the street, not getting closer than 2m to anyone, and not spending much time in close proximity to anyone, the mask isn't doing much. This is a general-purpose argument which explains away the existence of community spread, which we know was happening (33m US cases later...). Especially given what we now know about air vs surface transmission, people were clearly spreading it to each other last spring in ways that masks would have mitigated. Knowing what we now know about the difficulty of outdoor spread, people by definition were not universally adhering to what you're describing. Leaving aside the non-compliant (some portion of whom would have worn masks despite violating indoor gathering guidelines), many people were unable to avoid this: nursing homes, grocery stores, meatpacking plants, and all manner of essential workers[1] were clearly enough to drive robust spread. [1] Here's a list of just how expansive the "essential worker" category was in NYS: https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2020/03/new-york-state-mandates-that-non-essential-workers-must-stay-home/#:~:text=New%20York%20State%20Mandates%20That%20Non%2DEssential%20Workers%20Must%20Stay%20Home,-By%20Arielle%20E&text=Beginning%20Sunday%2C%20March%2022%2C%202020,utilize%20an%20in%2Dperson%20workforce https://www.lawandtheworkplace.com/2020/03/new-york-state-ma.... (Note that I don't mean that as a criticism, just a note that your postulated world of 100% of people never coming within 2m of anyone, including outside, is not reflective of reality)

DanBC 5y ago
> This is a general-purpose argument which explains away the existence of community spread, But that wasn't people waking past each other in the street, that was people working with each other in poorly ventilated spaces. Public health officials during the early stages fully expected all the other recommendations they were making to be taken up: proper lockdowns, vigorous test and trace with good quality supported isolation. If you're looking at "late lockdown with poor test and trace" then yes, you're right, not pushing masks doesn't make much sense. But it's odd to focus on the mask advice and not the late lockdowns.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  > But that wasn't people waking past each other in the street, that was people working with each other in poorly ventilated spaces. Yes, this is my point. There were tons of people (most people?) who didn't/couldn't live their lives without coming into contact with other people's spread, and these people were not recommended to wear masks either. This was particularly true in the beginning of the pandemic, when the non-scientifically-literate and non-digital-natives had yet to adapt to which behaviors were safe[1]. Masks were a simple, common-sense, zero-cost recommendation which predictably ended up being sound. > Public health officials during the early stages fully expected all the other recommendations they were making to be taken up: proper lockdowns, vigorous test and trace with good quality supported isolation. If you don't see this as gross incompetence, I don't know what to tell you. Assuming perfect compliance with specific measures and throwing defense in depth out of the window is shockingly stupid from multiple perspectives: scientifically, epistemically, > it's odd to focus on the mask advice and not the late lockdowns. I don't know anyone who defends locking down late. I know plenty of people who defend the severe and constant failures of our public health authorities. It's a much more interesting topic with much more profound implications. What's particularly fascinating about it is the _manner_ in which people defend these failures: Talk to a dozen people, and you'll get 13 highly-confident, mutually-contradictory and individually weak excuses. It strongly suggests to me that there's some weird psychological underpinning to this behavior, and that the expressed excuses are just window dressing. (To be clear, I don't intend this as a jab against you, but as a phenomenon that's interesting in the aggregate. Your comments in particular are more thoughtful than most I come across on this topic) [1] In the very early, high-uncertainty days of the pandemic, I had a (highly-educated and successful) uncle in his late 70s tell me not to get takeout and to wipe it down thoroughly if I did, right before saying that he only ever left the house to go to the _grocery store_. I tried telling him he had it precisely backwards (yes, this was clear from the evidence even that early), but his model stuck in his mind like a superstition and fear is a strong deterrent to changing one's mind.