12 ms·

A Misleading CDC Number

97 points by heshiebee 5y ago

FuckButtons 5y ago
One of the points that keeps coming up in these conversations- and is cited here as evidence - is that there are no documented cases of casual transmission from being near someone outside. While I don’t on principle dispute the conclusion - citing a lack of evidence of something that would be incredibly hard to find evidence for is not an effective argument. There are a huge number of cases where the actual source of infection is completely unknown and in the cases where tracking and tracing succeeds it is based on asking people who they interacted with, so the set of people you walked near in the street while infectious are almost certainly never going to be found and documented. The fact is we don’t know - it seems unlikely but there is some amount of existential uncertainty about outdoor transmission and given the fact we want the outbreak to end sooner rather than later being overly cautious doesn’t seem like a terrible idea to me.
- zaroth 5y ago
  There are plenty of friendly gatherings that happen throughout the summer where people who know each other spend significant amounts of time together outdoors. If outdoor transmission happened, you would see some documented cases. It’s not just all strangers walking past each other on the street.
troelsSteegin 5y ago
Simple conclusion: "Masks make a huge difference indoors and rarely matter outdoors." The 10% estimate in question is perhaps orders of magnitude too conservative. Why would the CDC employ such a weak numeric argument? They could have left it at something like we see no strong evidence for outdoor transmission. Does there have to be a number attached to public health advice?
- TehShrike 5y ago
  I can sympathize with that, that would probably have been much more truthful. But the CDC recommendations have been so poorly thought out so far, it's hard to blame anyone who would say "screw your judgment of evidence, give us a number"
- DebtDeflation 5y ago
  >Simple conclusion: "Masks make a huge difference indoors and rarely matter outdoors." Also: For a disease that we now know is airborne/aerosol spread rather than airborne/droplet, N95 and KN95 masks are highly effective, a two layer cloth mask fit tightly over a surgical mask is moderately effective, and a cloth mask by itself is largely for show. I still see people saying you should NOT use N95 masks (they're cheaply and widely available now) while donning a neck gaiter pulled up over their mouth. It's another area where the initial messaging was terrible (in this case out of the good intention of reserving them for healthcare workers) and unfortunately has persisted.
  - URSpider94 5y ago
    Cloth masks are largely for show in protecting you from other people. They are still highly effective in preventing your aerosols from getting out into the air. Even though COVID is airborne, it comes out of your mouth and nose in liquid droplets that then dehydrate and become airborne. If they hit a cloth mask on the way out, they'll be trapped.
  - mcguire 5y ago
    By "N95 mask", do you mean this https://www.amazon.com/3M-8511HB1-C-PS-Sanding-Fiberglass-Respirator/dp/B002VMCHPG/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=n95+mask&qid=1620750854&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.com/3M-8511HB1-C-PS-Sanding-Fiberglass-Re... or this? https://www.amazon.com/AccuMed-Respirator-Filtration-Disposable-Particulate/dp/B087QQV8WB/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=n95+mask&qid=1620750854&sr=8-6 https://www.amazon.com/AccuMed-Respirator-Filtration-Disposa... I've had a box of the former out in the garage for a couple of years; before 2020, if you looked for an "N95" mask, that's what you would find. But they're not terribly useful in a medical situation.
    - DebtDeflation 5y ago
      More the latter. They're both N95, but the valve in the former means outgoing air isn't being filtered.
    - raylad 5y ago
      You can wear another mask, like a surgical mask, to cover the exhale valve. Or tape over it (securely).
Someone1234 5y ago
This seems like pointless pedantry that the article itself seems to admit. The CDC set the bar really high (10%), so that they could provide public health guidance without getting caught in bickering about error-rate or statistical anomaly traps. The CDC tried to avoid pedantry and are now getting pedant-ed for that too. Ultimately this is a distinction without a difference, since "less than 1%" is included in "less than 10%." The CDC covered their back, and the public health guidance was identical.
- srinivgp 5y ago
  Absolutely not a distinction without a difference. "Less than 10%" implies, in the vernacular, that they didn't have confidence stating another round bound. That almost certainly it is greater than 1%, probably greater than 2%, and there's a good chance it's greater than 5%. That's how folks read numbers like this. And then they will correctly conclude they should not listen to the CDC because the CDC's numbers seem made up. If you need more nuance to avoid miscommunicating but you do not give it, you have miscommunicated.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
    Why can't they just give the number and the confidence interval and the methodology they used to arrive at the numbers??
    - brianwawok 5y ago
      What percentage of the American public understand what a confidence interval is? I have 95% confidence that this number is under 0.1% using the methodology of pulling numbers out of my butt. I have been in college level stat classes where many people didn't truly grasp confidence interval. While I would love the data, I think it's not really the most important thing during a crisis.
      - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
        No - but a lot of people by now work with someone or know someone who does understand stats. So people could talk about these things and start to understand it.
js2 5y ago
> It is an example of how the C.D.C. is struggling to communicate effectively, and leaving many people confused about what’s truly risky. I don't understand how this happened. The C.D.C. literally has a manual on how to communicate effectively during an outbreak: https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/ppt/cerc_2014edition_Copy.pdf https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/ppt/cerc_2014edition_Copy.pdf
- mhb 5y ago
  Seems like no one there has read the manual: "Throughout this book, six principles of effective crisis and risk communication are emphasized: 1. Be First: Crises are time-sensitive. Communicating information quickly is almost always important. For members of the public, the first source of information often becomes the preferred source. 2. Be Right: Accuracy establishes credibility. Information can include what is known, what is not known, and what is being done to fill in the gaps. 3. Be Credible: Honesty and truthfulness should not be compromised during crises. 4. Express Empathy: Crises create harm, and the suffering should be acknowledged in words. Addressing what people are feeling, and the challenges they face, builds trust and rapport. 5. Promote Action: Giving people meaningful things to do calms anxiety, helps restore order, and promotes a restored sense of control. 6. Show Respect: Respectful communication is particularly important when people feel vulnerable. Respectful communication promotes cooperation and rapport."
  - andrewljohnson 5y ago
    Value #1 seems pretty at odds with 2 and 3, and dangerous with #5. I wonder how the CDC reconciles this... surely Be Right is more important than Be First. A spammy news site could claim most of these values in this order.
    - pasquinelli 5y ago
      it's really not complicated: tell the public as soon as possible what is known and be honest with them about what isn't.
    - j4yav 5y ago
ikura 5y ago
This is a shoddy article that serves only to undermine efforts to deal effectively with Covid, in return for some clicks and eyeballs. Firstly, the entire premise of the article is not grounded in fact, it's based on multiple in-conclusive statements and reports. Just read the language in the first few sentences - "almost certainly", "appears to be partly based on", "seems to be an exaggeration". But the article then proceeds as if that were fact. It then tries to reach unsupported conclusions that feed into a convenient narrative at the expense of an inconvenient reality. That outdoor transmission may have been low is inseparable from the fact that the general population HAVE been distancing, cleaning, masking and other responses. So to conclude that since "<10% is too big of an estimate" masks should not be required for any outdoor activity is gross. It signs off by concluding that Britain's drop in death rate since January is based on Britain being locked down indoors and carefree outdoors completely ignores the fact that vaccinations have been ramping up. If you have a genuine conclusion then you don't need weasel words and misleading logic to tell your story.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  They aren't using weasel words, they're trying to guess the sources of statements which were released unsourced (which they shouldn't have to do.)
  - ikura 5y ago
    Seems like a rather strong conclusion to be based on guesswork. “CDC didn’t cite their sources for this figure and I don’t believe it” isn’t as catchy a headline though of course.
JPKab 5y ago
"That benchmark “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation." I'm extremely grateful that the NYT is calling this out. However, they are far too late, and frankly, played a role in misinforming the public on the pandemic. The audience on HN is pretty strongly aware of the extreme misinformation on COVID pushed out by right-wing news organizations, but doesn't SEEM to be aware of the extreme misinformation that was pushed out by the left-wing news outlets, which successfully skewed the US public's perception of COVID risk. The partisan divide on THIS specific topic shows that American's on both sides of the political divide grossly overestimate the likelihood of hospitalization from COVID, but that those who consume left-wing media are an order of magnitude more incorrect. Here's a good breakdown, containing links to the source polling data on the topic. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-misinformation-is-distorting-covid-policies-and-behaviors/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-misinformation-is-dis... I wasn't quite aware of how misinformed highly educated colleagues were until I contracted COVID in mid-February. My wife and I couldn't understand why people were acting like I was in so much danger, until we realized that people were grossly overestimating, by massive factors, the danger I was in. I'm a physically fit, active male in my late 30's. But people on my team acted very surprised that I didn't miss any work, and only had a loss of sense of smell as a symptom. They were acting as if I was somewhat of an outlier, instead of being the absolute norm for my age group/health status. The implications of this fear-mongering results in me being treated like a leper for not wearing a mask on hiking trails in wide open, wind-blown, and sunny open spaces. It's been a big reminder to me, that no, people on the left aren't actually less prone to misinformation, despite my preconceived notions and biases. Quantitative illiteracy in the majority of the American public has had horrific effects in this pandemic.
- spfzero 5y ago
  I think more than a left-right thing, this is a different axis. Some people are just more fearful in general. I've been surprised by friends of my same political persuasion that have acted in ways I would honestly need to call, not-quite-sane. Such as deciding now to keep their child out of school for the entire 21-22 school year, or leaving deliveries on their porch for 3 days before bringing it inside. These are smart people in many ways, but somehow their brains were hijacked. Talking to them about the actual risks triggers an emotional response. Even relating the risk level to something they do every day like driving seems to have no effect. These are people who are educated and consume news from respectable sources.
zug_zug 5y ago
Put together with all of the other mistakes around covid, it all seems rather silly. - We all know about the WHO and their statement on masks. - Distinctly remember people saying, "We don't know if antibodies offer protection," (in contrast to every other known sickness afaik). Turns out they do and they are superior to vaccine - Doesn't matter follow the same precautions as everyone. I know people who have had antibodies for over a year, but nobody would hang-out with them because immunity wasn't explained to the lay-people. - So much hand-wringing about whether the vaccine prevents transmission. Seemed like a given. Turns out it was a given. - Still so much hand-wringing about vaccinated people. Given 30% of america is vaccinated, it seems obvious that anybody vaccinated can pretty much go no-mask, no precautions, and if all the vulnerable populations are vaccinated then everybody can go no-mask. Basically America should be 100% open, and the .0001% who are vulnerable but can't get a vaccine can wear masks and quarantine. It's simply unacceptable for professionsals to say "We don't know X, we'll let you know in 3 months." If you don't know about the India variants and the vaccine, spend 100k to FLY-OUT 1,000 vaccines to India same day, inoculate 1000 volunteers, and track them. You'll have your answer within 40 days. Do this for every variant, it's not rocket-science. If there's something I'm missing, then they need to explain it about 10x better than they are doing so far. Feels like a bunch of middle-managers. --- tl; dr - CDC needs to be managed by some software engineers apparently. Edit - Feel free to justify those downvotes if you think you can.
- kickout 5y ago
  I think your getting downvotes with your 'software engineers should manage everything' comment. That's a comical statement to make and comes off appearing as a 'know-it-all', something the CDC appears to be suffering from
- URSpider94 5y ago
  1. We don't (and didn't) know how long antibodies would offer protection. Some viral infections can recur very quickly. Also, all of the data I've seen is that the immunity conferred by the COVID vaccine is more durable than that from an infection. 2. It's not a given that a vaccine prevents transmission. Being an asymptomatic carrier is a real thing. 3. This statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccination works. The vaccine is only 90% effective. If vaccinated people are swimming in a sea of COVID, then roughly 10% of them will go on to get COVID. You're also ignoring the fact that as of today children under 16 can't get vaccinated AT ALL, and so beyond whether they die or get critically ill from it, they are contributing to the sea of COVID that can infect vaccinated senior citizens. 3. Studies take time. Knowing how variants perform vs. vaccines is not a matter of people flying on a plane. It's a matter of running a study long enough to see who gets infected and who doesn't. You seem to be completely unaware of the classic project management warning that it takes 9 months to have a baby, 9 mothers can't have one in one month. On masking in public, you also need to understand that we have to have rules that are manageable. You can't say "oh vaccinated people, you can stop wearing masks in public", because then every storekeeper needs to query every non-masker to ask whether they are vaccinated - and of course they are all going to say yes, and they are even going to carry fake vaccination cards to prove their point. It's just an untenable situation, and additionally as long as COVID is in open spread with tens of thousands of cases per day, vaccinated people are still vulnerable.
superkuh 5y ago
The CDC's advice has been focused on one thing since the start of the pandemic: keeping the amount of PPE and infrastructure resources required down to the attainable for hospitals. It has never been about protection of the public at large. It's why they waited so long to acknowledge aerosol spread and still stick to droplet based modeling of indoor spaces despite acknowledging aerosol spread being dominant. It's why they say 6ft still re: droplets even though aersols don't care about 6ft. It's why they (and states) still let people use ineffective unfit "masks" instead of requiring (and supplying) everyone with N95 or better. I just don't understand what exaggerating outside spread does to help them with this. If anything it suggests that outdoors we'd need to use more N95 masks. It seems to go against all their past behavior.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  The CDC wants people wearing masks in as many places as possible for as long as possible because it prolongs the sense of danger and seriousness around the pandemic.
  - jrockway 5y ago
    Why does the CDC want to prolong the sense of danger?
    - setr 5y ago
      To play along: The CIA receives its funding based on perceived threat - the more there is, the better funded they need to be to defend against it. The less threat, the less the CIA needs to exist. The CDC is the same: the importance of their organization is perversely tied to medical danger present in the world, and the population’s perceived danger from it (as long as the CDC ensures they’re not at fault, or rather, no one believes them to be). That is, no one cares about the CDC when there’s no pandemic. TB: this is also the basis of nier:automata’s plot, taken to the extreme. The equivalent for the CDC is that they would intentionally preserve pandemics despite ability to eliminate them altogether, in order to preserve their own existence
- 5y ago
whipaway 5y ago
They've been so circumspect about their advice, their advice is practically useless and even worse: induces society-wide agoraphobia and fear. This does not come without consequence, the health effects of destroying the normal fabric of society are profound. Constant stress and fear ruins a person's health, never mind the effect of it occurring at a global level.
superkuh 5y ago
There are very different kinds of outdoors. A megacity urban area with packed sidewalks in literal urban canyons is one thing. A suburban town's sidewalks where I pass ~1 other person (on the other side of the street) every 5 blocks is another kind of outdoors. I'd wear an N95 in the former but not in the later.
- calyth2018 5y ago
  It doesn't even have to be at that extreme. A walk in a park vs a picnic of 20 people in a park from different households. The former's risk is probably nil; the latter's not. However, I've seen this last fall...
AzzieElbab 5y ago
People keep mistaking cdc, who, and other bureaucracies actions for something other than overcompensating for earlier incompetence and inaction. Bureaucracy is not driven by performance, it is driven by maintaining whatever current acceptable status quo is.
- kodah 5y ago
  Would it be bad to have the CDC, the WHO, and political figures apologize for the environment of misinformation and division they enabled (and possibly created) through these means? I feel like a given citizenry can tolerate in-the-moment-incompetence, but they expect to be validated later in turn, and not just in the history books.
  - AzzieElbab 5y ago
    I grew up in the ussr. I do not believe in institutional responsibility simply because I have not seen any manifestation of such thing. Federal bureaucrats are too distanced from the voters to suffer any consequences
haspoken 5y ago
http://archive.is/jzhF7 http://archive.is/jzhF7
wolverine876 5y ago
Now the public has more recommendations from another source, and it also will cause people to doubt the CDC's other advice. That doesn't reduce the complexity or confusion, it adds to it - like the old XKCD about adding another standard to existing standards. That will hurt people. Wearing a mask too often outdoors will not. It's really major news requiring a special article to say the number of outdoor transmissions may be overstated from 1% to 10%? So what? > C.D.C. officials have placed such a high priority on caution that many Americans are bewildered by the agency’s long list of recommendations. Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina, writing in The Atlantic, called those recommendations “simultaneously too timid and too complicated.” What basis is there for this claim? I find them straightforward, and I find the CDC website clear and well-designed. I just wear a mask when I'll be near other people, and I avoid being near them. Ranting at an easy target, a government institution, is commonplace, senseless entertainment. It's often harmless - but not in this case.
- rozab 5y ago
  >So what? So people will meet inside rather than outside, not realising what a huge difference it makes, thus increasing infection. I have family members who still disinfect all their shopping, but don't even open the windows when they have guests round. Prioritisation is essential here, not everybody is going to be perfect, and if they are compromising on the wrong measures due to miscommunication then that's a massive failure.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    > So people will meet inside rather than outside, not realising what a huge difference it makes, thus increasing infection. I don't see that. The CDC used the number 10%; that doesn't convey that outside is dangerous and you should seek cover.

97 points by heshiebee 5y ago

One of the points that keeps coming up in these conversations- and is cited here as evidence - is that there are no documented cases of casual transmission from being near someone outside. While I don’t on principle dispute the conclusion - citing a lack of evidence of something that would be incredibly hard to find evidence for is not an effective argument. There are a huge number of cases where the actual source of infection is completely unknown and in the cases where tracking and tracing succeeds it is based on asking people who they interacted with, so the set of people you walked near in the street while infectious are almost certainly never going to be found and documented. The fact is we don’t know - it seems unlikely but there is some amount of existential uncertainty about outdoor transmission and given the fact we want the outbreak to end sooner rather than later being overly cautious doesn’t seem like a terrible idea to me.

zaroth 5y ago
There are plenty of friendly gatherings that happen throughout the summer where people who know each other spend significant amounts of time together outdoors. If outdoor transmission happened, you would see some documented cases. It’s not just all strangers walking past each other on the street.

troelsSteegin 5y ago

Simple conclusion: "Masks make a huge difference indoors and rarely matter outdoors." The 10% estimate in question is perhaps orders of magnitude too conservative. Why would the CDC employ such a weak numeric argument? They could have left it at something like we see no strong evidence for outdoor transmission. Does there have to be a number attached to public health advice?

TehShrike 5y ago
I can sympathize with that, that would probably have been much more truthful. But the CDC recommendations have been so poorly thought out so far, it's hard to blame anyone who would say "screw your judgment of evidence, give us a number"
DebtDeflation 5y ago
>Simple conclusion: "Masks make a huge difference indoors and rarely matter outdoors." Also: For a disease that we now know is airborne/aerosol spread rather than airborne/droplet, N95 and KN95 masks are highly effective, a two layer cloth mask fit tightly over a surgical mask is moderately effective, and a cloth mask by itself is largely for show. I still see people saying you should NOT use N95 masks (they're cheaply and widely available now) while donning a neck gaiter pulled up over their mouth. It's another area where the initial messaging was terrible (in this case out of the good intention of reserving them for healthcare workers) and unfortunately has persisted.
- URSpider94 5y ago
  Cloth masks are largely for show in protecting you from other people. They are still highly effective in preventing your aerosols from getting out into the air. Even though COVID is airborne, it comes out of your mouth and nose in liquid droplets that then dehydrate and become airborne. If they hit a cloth mask on the way out, they'll be trapped.
- mcguire 5y ago
  By "N95 mask", do you mean this https://www.amazon.com/3M-8511HB1-C-PS-Sanding-Fiberglass-Respirator/dp/B002VMCHPG/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=n95+mask&qid=1620750854&sr=8-5 https://www.amazon.com/3M-8511HB1-C-PS-Sanding-Fiberglass-Re... or this? https://www.amazon.com/AccuMed-Respirator-Filtration-Disposable-Particulate/dp/B087QQV8WB/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=n95+mask&qid=1620750854&sr=8-6 https://www.amazon.com/AccuMed-Respirator-Filtration-Disposa... I've had a box of the former out in the garage for a couple of years; before 2020, if you looked for an "N95" mask, that's what you would find. But they're not terribly useful in a medical situation.
  - DebtDeflation 5y ago
    More the latter. They're both N95, but the valve in the former means outgoing air isn't being filtered.
  - raylad 5y ago
    You can wear another mask, like a surgical mask, to cover the exhale valve. Or tape over it (securely).

Someone1234 5y ago

This seems like pointless pedantry that the article itself seems to admit. The CDC set the bar really high (10%), so that they could provide public health guidance without getting caught in bickering about error-rate or statistical anomaly traps. The CDC tried to avoid pedantry and are now getting pedant-ed for that too. Ultimately this is a distinction without a difference, since "less than 1%" is included in "less than 10%." The CDC covered their back, and the public health guidance was identical.

srinivgp 5y ago
Absolutely not a distinction without a difference. "Less than 10%" implies, in the vernacular, that they didn't have confidence stating another round bound. That almost certainly it is greater than 1%, probably greater than 2%, and there's a good chance it's greater than 5%. That's how folks read numbers like this. And then they will correctly conclude they should not listen to the CDC because the CDC's numbers seem made up. If you need more nuance to avoid miscommunicating but you do not give it, you have miscommunicated.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  Why can't they just give the number and the confidence interval and the methodology they used to arrive at the numbers??
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    What percentage of the American public understand what a confidence interval is? I have 95% confidence that this number is under 0.1% using the methodology of pulling numbers out of my butt. I have been in college level stat classes where many people didn't truly grasp confidence interval. While I would love the data, I think it's not really the most important thing during a crisis.
    - onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
      No - but a lot of people by now work with someone or know someone who does understand stats. So people could talk about these things and start to understand it.

js2 5y ago

> It is an example of how the C.D.C. is struggling to communicate effectively, and leaving many people confused about what’s truly risky. I don't understand how this happened. The C.D.C. literally has a manual on how to communicate effectively during an outbreak: https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/ppt/cerc_2014edition_Copy.pdf https://emergency.cdc.gov/cerc/ppt/cerc_2014edition_Copy.pdf

mhb 5y ago
Seems like no one there has read the manual: "Throughout this book, six principles of effective crisis and risk communication are emphasized: 1. Be First: Crises are time-sensitive. Communicating information quickly is almost always important. For members of the public, the first source of information often becomes the preferred source. 2. Be Right: Accuracy establishes credibility. Information can include what is known, what is not known, and what is being done to fill in the gaps. 3. Be Credible: Honesty and truthfulness should not be compromised during crises. 4. Express Empathy: Crises create harm, and the suffering should be acknowledged in words. Addressing what people are feeling, and the challenges they face, builds trust and rapport. 5. Promote Action: Giving people meaningful things to do calms anxiety, helps restore order, and promotes a restored sense of control. 6. Show Respect: Respectful communication is particularly important when people feel vulnerable. Respectful communication promotes cooperation and rapport."
- andrewljohnson 5y ago
  Value #1 seems pretty at odds with 2 and 3, and dangerous with #5. I wonder how the CDC reconciles this... surely Be Right is more important than Be First. A spammy news site could claim most of these values in this order.
  - pasquinelli 5y ago
    it's really not complicated: tell the public as soon as possible what is known and be honest with them about what isn't.
  - j4yav 5y ago

ikura 5y ago

This is a shoddy article that serves only to undermine efforts to deal effectively with Covid, in return for some clicks and eyeballs. Firstly, the entire premise of the article is not grounded in fact, it's based on multiple in-conclusive statements and reports. Just read the language in the first few sentences - "almost certainly", "appears to be partly based on", "seems to be an exaggeration". But the article then proceeds as if that were fact. It then tries to reach unsupported conclusions that feed into a convenient narrative at the expense of an inconvenient reality. That outdoor transmission may have been low is inseparable from the fact that the general population HAVE been distancing, cleaning, masking and other responses. So to conclude that since "<10% is too big of an estimate" masks should not be required for any outdoor activity is gross. It signs off by concluding that Britain's drop in death rate since January is based on Britain being locked down indoors and carefree outdoors completely ignores the fact that vaccinations have been ramping up. If you have a genuine conclusion then you don't need weasel words and misleading logic to tell your story.

pessimizer 5y ago
They aren't using weasel words, they're trying to guess the sources of statements which were released unsourced (which they shouldn't have to do.)
- ikura 5y ago
  Seems like a rather strong conclusion to be based on guesswork. “CDC didn’t cite their sources for this figure and I don’t believe it” isn’t as catchy a headline though of course.

JPKab 5y ago

"That benchmark “seems to be a huge exaggeration,” as Dr. Muge Cevik, a virologist at the University of St. Andrews, said. In truth, the share of transmission that has occurred outdoors seems to be below 1 percent and may be below 0.1 percent, multiple epidemiologists told me. The rare outdoor transmission that has happened almost all seems to have involved crowded places or close conversation." I'm extremely grateful that the NYT is calling this out. However, they are far too late, and frankly, played a role in misinforming the public on the pandemic. The audience on HN is pretty strongly aware of the extreme misinformation on COVID pushed out by right-wing news organizations, but doesn't SEEM to be aware of the extreme misinformation that was pushed out by the left-wing news outlets, which successfully skewed the US public's perception of COVID risk. The partisan divide on THIS specific topic shows that American's on both sides of the political divide grossly overestimate the likelihood of hospitalization from COVID, but that those who consume left-wing media are an order of magnitude more incorrect. Here's a good breakdown, containing links to the source polling data on the topic. https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-misinformation-is-distorting-covid-policies-and-behaviors/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/how-misinformation-is-dis... I wasn't quite aware of how misinformed highly educated colleagues were until I contracted COVID in mid-February. My wife and I couldn't understand why people were acting like I was in so much danger, until we realized that people were grossly overestimating, by massive factors, the danger I was in. I'm a physically fit, active male in my late 30's. But people on my team acted very surprised that I didn't miss any work, and only had a loss of sense of smell as a symptom. They were acting as if I was somewhat of an outlier, instead of being the absolute norm for my age group/health status. The implications of this fear-mongering results in me being treated like a leper for not wearing a mask on hiking trails in wide open, wind-blown, and sunny open spaces. It's been a big reminder to me, that no, people on the left aren't actually less prone to misinformation, despite my preconceived notions and biases. Quantitative illiteracy in the majority of the American public has had horrific effects in this pandemic.

spfzero 5y ago
I think more than a left-right thing, this is a different axis. Some people are just more fearful in general. I've been surprised by friends of my same political persuasion that have acted in ways I would honestly need to call, not-quite-sane. Such as deciding now to keep their child out of school for the entire 21-22 school year, or leaving deliveries on their porch for 3 days before bringing it inside. These are smart people in many ways, but somehow their brains were hijacked. Talking to them about the actual risks triggers an emotional response. Even relating the risk level to something they do every day like driving seems to have no effect. These are people who are educated and consume news from respectable sources.

zug_zug 5y ago

Put together with all of the other mistakes around covid, it all seems rather silly. - We all know about the WHO and their statement on masks. - Distinctly remember people saying, "We don't know if antibodies offer protection," (in contrast to every other known sickness afaik). Turns out they do and they are superior to vaccine - Doesn't matter follow the same precautions as everyone. I know people who have had antibodies for over a year, but nobody would hang-out with them because immunity wasn't explained to the lay-people. - So much hand-wringing about whether the vaccine prevents transmission. Seemed like a given. Turns out it was a given. - Still so much hand-wringing about vaccinated people. Given 30% of america is vaccinated, it seems obvious that anybody vaccinated can pretty much go no-mask, no precautions, and if all the vulnerable populations are vaccinated then everybody can go no-mask. Basically America should be 100% open, and the .0001% who are vulnerable but can't get a vaccine can wear masks and quarantine. It's simply unacceptable for professionsals to say "We don't know X, we'll let you know in 3 months." If you don't know about the India variants and the vaccine, spend 100k to FLY-OUT 1,000 vaccines to India same day, inoculate 1000 volunteers, and track them. You'll have your answer within 40 days. Do this for every variant, it's not rocket-science. If there's something I'm missing, then they need to explain it about 10x better than they are doing so far. Feels like a bunch of middle-managers. --- tl; dr - CDC needs to be managed by some software engineers apparently. Edit - Feel free to justify those downvotes if you think you can.

kickout 5y ago
I think your getting downvotes with your 'software engineers should manage everything' comment. That's a comical statement to make and comes off appearing as a 'know-it-all', something the CDC appears to be suffering from
URSpider94 5y ago
1. We don't (and didn't) know how long antibodies would offer protection. Some viral infections can recur very quickly. Also, all of the data I've seen is that the immunity conferred by the COVID vaccine is more durable than that from an infection. 2. It's not a given that a vaccine prevents transmission. Being an asymptomatic carrier is a real thing. 3. This statement shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how vaccination works. The vaccine is only 90% effective. If vaccinated people are swimming in a sea of COVID, then roughly 10% of them will go on to get COVID. You're also ignoring the fact that as of today children under 16 can't get vaccinated AT ALL, and so beyond whether they die or get critically ill from it, they are contributing to the sea of COVID that can infect vaccinated senior citizens. 3. Studies take time. Knowing how variants perform vs. vaccines is not a matter of people flying on a plane. It's a matter of running a study long enough to see who gets infected and who doesn't. You seem to be completely unaware of the classic project management warning that it takes 9 months to have a baby, 9 mothers can't have one in one month. On masking in public, you also need to understand that we have to have rules that are manageable. You can't say "oh vaccinated people, you can stop wearing masks in public", because then every storekeeper needs to query every non-masker to ask whether they are vaccinated - and of course they are all going to say yes, and they are even going to carry fake vaccination cards to prove their point. It's just an untenable situation, and additionally as long as COVID is in open spread with tens of thousands of cases per day, vaccinated people are still vulnerable.

superkuh 5y ago

The CDC's advice has been focused on one thing since the start of the pandemic: keeping the amount of PPE and infrastructure resources required down to the attainable for hospitals. It has never been about protection of the public at large. It's why they waited so long to acknowledge aerosol spread and still stick to droplet based modeling of indoor spaces despite acknowledging aerosol spread being dominant. It's why they say 6ft still re: droplets even though aersols don't care about 6ft. It's why they (and states) still let people use ineffective unfit "masks" instead of requiring (and supplying) everyone with N95 or better. I just don't understand what exaggerating outside spread does to help them with this. If anything it suggests that outdoors we'd need to use more N95 masks. It seems to go against all their past behavior.

AndrewBissell 5y ago
The CDC wants people wearing masks in as many places as possible for as long as possible because it prolongs the sense of danger and seriousness around the pandemic.
- jrockway 5y ago
  Why does the CDC want to prolong the sense of danger?
  - setr 5y ago
    To play along: The CIA receives its funding based on perceived threat - the more there is, the better funded they need to be to defend against it. The less threat, the less the CIA needs to exist. The CDC is the same: the importance of their organization is perversely tied to medical danger present in the world, and the population’s perceived danger from it (as long as the CDC ensures they’re not at fault, or rather, no one believes them to be). That is, no one cares about the CDC when there’s no pandemic. TB: this is also the basis of nier:automata’s plot, taken to the extreme. The equivalent for the CDC is that they would intentionally preserve pandemics despite ability to eliminate them altogether, in order to preserve their own existence
5y ago

whipaway 5y ago

They've been so circumspect about their advice, their advice is practically useless and even worse: induces society-wide agoraphobia and fear. This does not come without consequence, the health effects of destroying the normal fabric of society are profound. Constant stress and fear ruins a person's health, never mind the effect of it occurring at a global level.

superkuh 5y ago

There are very different kinds of outdoors. A megacity urban area with packed sidewalks in literal urban canyons is one thing. A suburban town's sidewalks where I pass ~1 other person (on the other side of the street) every 5 blocks is another kind of outdoors. I'd wear an N95 in the former but not in the later.

calyth2018 5y ago
It doesn't even have to be at that extreme. A walk in a park vs a picnic of 20 people in a park from different households. The former's risk is probably nil; the latter's not. However, I've seen this last fall...

AzzieElbab 5y ago

People keep mistaking cdc, who, and other bureaucracies actions for something other than overcompensating for earlier incompetence and inaction. Bureaucracy is not driven by performance, it is driven by maintaining whatever current acceptable status quo is.

kodah 5y ago
Would it be bad to have the CDC, the WHO, and political figures apologize for the environment of misinformation and division they enabled (and possibly created) through these means? I feel like a given citizenry can tolerate in-the-moment-incompetence, but they expect to be validated later in turn, and not just in the history books.
- AzzieElbab 5y ago
  I grew up in the ussr. I do not believe in institutional responsibility simply because I have not seen any manifestation of such thing. Federal bureaucrats are too distanced from the voters to suffer any consequences

haspoken 5y ago

http://archive.is/jzhF7 http://archive.is/jzhF7

wolverine876 5y ago

Now the public has more recommendations from another source, and it also will cause people to doubt the CDC's other advice. That doesn't reduce the complexity or confusion, it adds to it - like the old XKCD about adding another standard to existing standards. That will hurt people. Wearing a mask too often outdoors will not. It's really major news requiring a special article to say the number of outdoor transmissions may be overstated from 1% to 10%? So what? > C.D.C. officials have placed such a high priority on caution that many Americans are bewildered by the agency’s long list of recommendations. Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina, writing in The Atlantic, called those recommendations “simultaneously too timid and too complicated.” What basis is there for this claim? I find them straightforward, and I find the CDC website clear and well-designed. I just wear a mask when I'll be near other people, and I avoid being near them. Ranting at an easy target, a government institution, is commonplace, senseless entertainment. It's often harmless - but not in this case.

rozab 5y ago
>So what? So people will meet inside rather than outside, not realising what a huge difference it makes, thus increasing infection. I have family members who still disinfect all their shopping, but don't even open the windows when they have guests round. Prioritisation is essential here, not everybody is going to be perfect, and if they are compromising on the wrong measures due to miscommunication then that's a massive failure.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > So people will meet inside rather than outside, not realising what a huge difference it makes, thus increasing infection. I don't see that. The CDC used the number 10%; that doesn't convey that outside is dangerous and you should seek cover.