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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 atta

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 6y 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 6y ago
  Why does the CDC want to prolong the sense of danger?
  - setr 6y 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
66fm472tjy7 6y ago
Austria[0] and Germany[1, edit: this seems to only be true for Bavaria and Berlin, see comments below] have mandated the use of FFP2 masks since the end of January. Their neighboring countries didn't[2]. If you look at the data, there does not appear to be a decrease in infection numbers relative to their neighbors after the switch to FFP2[3]. [0] https://orf.at/stories/3197782/ https://orf.at/stories/3197782/ [1] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/recht/verschaerfte-massnahmen-der-grosse-ueberblick-wann-und-wo-die-ffp2-masken-pflicht-bei-ihnen-gilt_id_12898148.html https://www.focus.de/finanzen/recht/verschaerfte-massnahmen-... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/01/26/960893423/some-european-countries-move-to-require-medical-grade-masks-in-public?t=1620762628339 https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-12-31..latest&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=New+per+day&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=AUT~DEU~CZE~HUN~POL~FRA~CHE~SVK~ITA~DNK~BEL~NLD https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...
- saddlerustle 6y ago
  Germany hasn't required FFP2 masks, the state of Bavaria did (which includes only 15% of the german population)
  - 1ris 6y ago
    Germany requires FFP2 masks OR op masks. Public transportation requires FFP2, vouchers for FFP2 masks have been issued (huge cash grab for pharmacies, but thats a different story). They are ubiquitous. I just went shopping and all customers wore a ffp2 mask. The cashier was behind totally useless (see: aerosols) plastic shielding and didn't wear any mask thou.
    - throwaway894345 6y ago
      Apropos of very little, I was in Tennessee recently and at nearly every establishment, the personnel wore their facemasks around their chin, presumably to nominally satisfy some corporate mandate. I say this more as an amusing observation than an implicit judgment one way or another.

AndrewBissell 6y 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 6y ago
Why does the CDC want to prolong the sense of danger?
- setr 6y 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

66fm472tjy7 6y ago

Austria[0] and Germany[1, edit: this seems to only be true for Bavaria and Berlin, see comments below] have mandated the use of FFP2 masks since the end of January. Their neighboring countries didn't[2]. If you look at the data, there does not appear to be a decrease in infection numbers relative to their neighbors after the switch to FFP2[3]. [0] https://orf.at/stories/3197782/ https://orf.at/stories/3197782/ [1] https://www.focus.de/finanzen/recht/verschaerfte-massnahmen-der-grosse-ueberblick-wann-und-wo-die-ffp2-masken-pflicht-bei-ihnen-gilt_id_12898148.html https://www.focus.de/finanzen/recht/verschaerfte-massnahmen-... [2] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/01/26/960893423/some-european-countries-move-to-require-medical-grade-masks-in-public?t=1620762628339 https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/0... [3] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&time=2020-12-31..latest&pickerSort=asc&pickerMetric=location&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=New+per+day&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=AUT~DEU~CZE~HUN~POL~FRA~CHE~SVK~ITA~DNK~BEL~NLD https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

saddlerustle 6y ago
Germany hasn't required FFP2 masks, the state of Bavaria did (which includes only 15% of the german population)
- 1ris 6y ago
  Germany requires FFP2 masks OR op masks. Public transportation requires FFP2, vouchers for FFP2 masks have been issued (huge cash grab for pharmacies, but thats a different story). They are ubiquitous. I just went shopping and all customers wore a ffp2 mask. The cashier was behind totally useless (see: aerosols) plastic shielding and didn't wear any mask thou.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Apropos of very little, I was in Tennessee recently and at nearly every establishment, the personnel wore their facemasks around their chin, presumably to nominally satisfy some corporate mandate. I say this more as an amusing observation than an implicit judgment one way or another.