6 ms·

The CDC/surgeon general recommended not wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic, while Silicon Valley was way ahead of the curve (meanwhile hit pieces we

The CDC/surgeon general recommended not wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic, while Silicon Valley was way ahead of the curve (meanwhile hit pieces were posted by journalists with an axe to grind saying they we’re overreacting). So yes it has lost its credibility.

dimator 5y ago
This is the citation I found for this claim: https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommends-wearing-a-mask-in-some-cases/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommend... Overall, science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. This is no different in my mind than the gradual change in the recommendations towards cigarette smoking over the decades, only in this case it played out over weeks and months (that article was from April of 2020). If you want something infallible and written in stone from day 1, that's what religious texts are for. But to claim that scientists lost credibility because new research led them to change their minds is to misunderstand the purpose of science.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  Masks weren't a mysterious new invention that the CDC just learned about at the start of the pandemic.
  - skocznymroczny 5y ago
    Also their usefulness is very limited outside of virtue signalling.
- acituan 5y ago
  > science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. CDC is a public health organization, not a science making organization. Its responsibility is to make the competent public health decisions based on the best available data and sound risk management. No one is faulting CDC for eventually course correcting, they are criticizing it for not having followed a more risk averse strategy from the get go and not having communicated their rationale honestly. Imagine if FDA behaved like CDC; roll out the vaccines to general public with minimal trial, updating their decision on safety as more data came in. Scientific incrementalism doesn't suit all use cases, and this has nothing to do with infallibility.
  - joshribakoff 5y ago
    > updating their decision on safety as more data came in. That’s literally what they do. They paused when there were concerns over blood clots, then expanded access to more cohorts as more studies were completed.
    - acituan 5y ago
      "with minimal trial" is the operative word, which didn't happen. The point being there is a balance between waiting for perfect data and making risk based policies.
- bourgwaletariat 5y ago
  Do you actually remember this in real time? Do you remember at the beginning when everyone was wondering what to do and they said wear a mask and then they said not wear a mask and everyone around you was like, "What?? What is going on??" And then a short while later they said wear a mask again. These things have real world ramifications. You can't just point to a snopes a year later and retain the context within which this trust destroying episode went down. People have memories. They felt the frustration. They felt the betrayal. And they have yet to recover from that. To dismiss that very real feeling of betrayal as "well, this is what snopes says" is rewriting history. And, all of that comes on the heels of big tobacco, DDT, thalidomide, BPA, climate change, and then the new climate change, big pharma with their oxycontin and big medicine fleecing Americans and they won't even discuss medicare for all and we have to protect corporate profits over saving humanity?? Seriously?? And you dismiss all that with "science is a process." Except the process has been completely dismissed as well. Science created the process that takes years to approve a new vaccine, all of that has been completely dismissed exactly when a brand new technology for creating vaccines has been created. No part of this is science. This is politics. Period. 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine. And so now it's somehow a different vaccine that we should all get? Now folks who don't want to get Biden's vaccine are science deniers? This. is. not. science. This is politics and a lot of people are refusing to get the vaccine purely because it's politics and NOT science. Did you watch Fauci get destroyed up there this week? He's a liar. Period.
  - sharken 5y ago
    This is the key issue at hand, science has made us understand the virus and science has provided working vaccines. Politics decide when a country/state gets to remove restrictions, this is where the heated arguments begin.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - antientropic 5y ago
    > People have memories. And sometimes they have false memories. For example, regarding: > 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine. What she said was that she would take the vaccine if the professionals said it was safe, not if Trump told her to take it [1]. A rather understandable level of skepticism given Trump's peddling of miracle cures such as hydroxychloroquine. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0
- bnralt 5y ago
  > If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. But that's not what happened. There was plenty of studies showing that masks could be effective before the pandemic started[1]. Here are a couple of Hacker news discussions from early March 2020 about studies done years earlier showing that mask use is effective[2][3]. And this article from right before the CDC changed it's recommendation, for good measure[4]: "Do you need a mask? The science hasn't changed, but public guidance might" I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to consider the possibility that the CDC made a mistake. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/preview https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22460630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22460630 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22498941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22498941 [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/do-you-need-mask-science-hasn-t-changed-public-guidance-n1173006 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/do-you-need-mask-...
  - joshribakoff 5y ago
    Whether masks could be effective was never in debate. If you recall, they were concerned people would use the masks incorrectly and that could do more harm, as well as potential shortages in the supply chain and getting the masks to the most important workers. I don’t recall the CDC ever saying “masks do not work”
    - a9h74j 5y ago
      Fauchi, presumed spokesman for the CDC, came as close as possible to saying so, and/or was taken as such. If that early statement can be justified by "fog of war" changing virus-related information at that time, then Fauchi should have allowed himself that complication. By offering "there were not enough masks available then" as a later explanation, he seems to have explained it essentially by saying he lied. In doing so he apparently threw away a substantial amount of his credibility, for many people. At worst a lying move; at best a lightweight move with lives at risk.
  - andreilys 5y ago
    I don't think the CDC made a mistake - I think they intentionally "lied" for the sake of the public good, aka the Noble Lie. Rather than saying "Hey lets hold off on buying masks so that we have enough for essential care workers" they instead said "do not buy masks because they aren't effective, or might even make risk of infection higher!"
herbst 5y ago
Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning, a few months later he explained that this was wrong and the only reason he said masks are not necessary was because there weren't enough and private people were already stockpiling it anyway. So people wore masks and life went on. I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things
- paganel 5y ago
  > I still don't understand why so many countries can't be more honest about these things Depending on the jurisdiction and on your political opponents what the Swiss virus guy did is liable to send you to prison for intentionally lying and acting on that lie when employed as a public servant. Most probably the political debate is less vicious in Switzerland and that won't happen to your virus guy, but where I live (EU country from Eastern Europe) that would have been very dangerous for him to do in regards to his freedom. I guess that's why a lot of politicians double down on their lies, because if they're caught there's a small chance of them going to prison for them, so why take the risk?
  - herbst 5y ago
    Interesting point. Guess it comes down to his words as the initial wording was more like 'in the current situation it is not necessary to wear masks' not trump's vision of 'masks don't work' which would have been an obvious lie.
    - johnchristopher 5y ago
      In Belgium we had a third version: "masks are dangerous because people don't know how to adjust and wear them, they touch them too much (spreading the virus) and masks give a false sense of security that will lead to more contagions". The chief of our CDC equivalent said he was shopping in supermarket without mask. Then they admitted saying that because stocks were too low and wearing a mask was gradually made mandatory and they told us to make our own masks.
- johnchristopher 5y ago
walrus01 5y ago
They specifically recommended not wearing N95 masks, which were very scarce and in limited supply at the beginning of the pandemic. With the goal of maintaining the very limited supply for medical personnel, while cargo planes moved around the globe and production ramped up.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  N95s also need to be vacuum fit IIRC for max efficacy
- wrycoder 5y ago
  They still are.
shlant 5y ago
> So yes it has lost its credibility. I feel like this black and white, "you get one chance" kind of bridge burning is very unproductive. When you look at these agencies not as omniscient entities but as what they are - a collaborative effort of many individuals - then you allow for the evolution of understanding. People can be wrong, especially in regards to more novel situations, so why should we view our institutions as any different? Yes having more eyes and varied perspectives means that it may make sense to expect something more reliable than an individual, but that doesn't make it infallible and IMO that's ok.
- janto 5y ago
  Organisations of professions should be held to extremely high standards. They are entrusted with more and in return given more privileges than any simple "collection of people".
  - shlant 5y ago
    as I said, it makes sense to expect more from governmental bodies but that still does not mean an expectation of infallibility. High standards and impossible standards are worlds apart.
- andreilys 5y ago
  It's not about being wrong, it's about intentionally misleading the public because you believe they are incapable of handling the truth (i.e. we have supply chain issues with masks because surprise outsourcing your supply chains to other countries has fatal flaws)
benjaminwootton 5y ago
Genuine question, why did they not lose credibility when they started recommending them due to political pressure rather than “the science”? As I understand it, there is still very flimsy scientific backing for the effectiveness of masks.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  AFAIK at best it depends upon number of layers, what kind of layers, fit, droplets (and size) vs. aerosols, humidity, interpersonal distance and dwelling time, and of course ventilation. Given the framing of the "mask debate" in the US with essentially no frequent or defining mention of face covering quality/qualities, essentially it seems like Cargo-cult science at the restrictions/policy level. There are people who meet the requirements essentially breathing through stretched or O(500um) single-layer mesh. I have not looked closely enough at electret properties to know if meshes with larger pore sizes can really stop 0.06um virus particles. (Or 10nm according to this https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-Compared-to-Other-Things.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-C... )
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  For aerosols, cloth masks are an order of magnitude less effective than dipole charged N95 (which attract sub micron scale particles with a built-in electric charge in the fibers, it’s a high-tech process.)

dimator 5y ago

This is the citation I found for this claim: https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommends-wearing-a-mask-in-some-cases/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommend... Overall, science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. This is no different in my mind than the gradual change in the recommendations towards cigarette smoking over the decades, only in this case it played out over weeks and months (that article was from April of 2020). If you want something infallible and written in stone from day 1, that's what religious texts are for. But to claim that scientists lost credibility because new research led them to change their minds is to misunderstand the purpose of science.

Mountain_Skies 5y ago
Masks weren't a mysterious new invention that the CDC just learned about at the start of the pandemic.
- skocznymroczny 5y ago
  Also their usefulness is very limited outside of virtue signalling.
acituan 5y ago
> science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. CDC is a public health organization, not a science making organization. Its responsibility is to make the competent public health decisions based on the best available data and sound risk management. No one is faulting CDC for eventually course correcting, they are criticizing it for not having followed a more risk averse strategy from the get go and not having communicated their rationale honestly. Imagine if FDA behaved like CDC; roll out the vaccines to general public with minimal trial, updating their decision on safety as more data came in. Scientific incrementalism doesn't suit all use cases, and this has nothing to do with infallibility.
- joshribakoff 5y ago
  > updating their decision on safety as more data came in. That’s literally what they do. They paused when there were concerns over blood clots, then expanded access to more cohorts as more studies were completed.
  - acituan 5y ago
    "with minimal trial" is the operative word, which didn't happen. The point being there is a balance between waiting for perfect data and making risk based policies.
bourgwaletariat 5y ago
Do you actually remember this in real time? Do you remember at the beginning when everyone was wondering what to do and they said wear a mask and then they said not wear a mask and everyone around you was like, "What?? What is going on??" And then a short while later they said wear a mask again. These things have real world ramifications. You can't just point to a snopes a year later and retain the context within which this trust destroying episode went down. People have memories. They felt the frustration. They felt the betrayal. And they have yet to recover from that. To dismiss that very real feeling of betrayal as "well, this is what snopes says" is rewriting history. And, all of that comes on the heels of big tobacco, DDT, thalidomide, BPA, climate change, and then the new climate change, big pharma with their oxycontin and big medicine fleecing Americans and they won't even discuss medicare for all and we have to protect corporate profits over saving humanity?? Seriously?? And you dismiss all that with "science is a process." Except the process has been completely dismissed as well. Science created the process that takes years to approve a new vaccine, all of that has been completely dismissed exactly when a brand new technology for creating vaccines has been created. No part of this is science. This is politics. Period. 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine. And so now it's somehow a different vaccine that we should all get? Now folks who don't want to get Biden's vaccine are science deniers? This. is. not. science. This is politics and a lot of people are refusing to get the vaccine purely because it's politics and NOT science. Did you watch Fauci get destroyed up there this week? He's a liar. Period.
- sharken 5y ago
  This is the key issue at hand, science has made us understand the virus and science has provided working vaccines. Politics decide when a country/state gets to remove restrictions, this is where the heated arguments begin.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- antientropic 5y ago
  > People have memories. And sometimes they have false memories. For example, regarding: > 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine. What she said was that she would take the vaccine if the professionals said it was safe, not if Trump told her to take it [1]. A rather understandable level of skepticism given Trump's peddling of miracle cures such as hydroxychloroquine. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0
bnralt 5y ago
> If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. But that's not what happened. There was plenty of studies showing that masks could be effective before the pandemic started[1]. Here are a couple of Hacker news discussions from early March 2020 about studies done years earlier showing that mask use is effective[2][3]. And this article from right before the CDC changed it's recommendation, for good measure[4]: "Do you need a mask? The science hasn't changed, but public guidance might" I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to consider the possibility that the CDC made a mistake. [1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4pt4oFDBhsC_jpblXpNtQ/preview https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22460630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22460630 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22498941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22498941 [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/do-you-need-mask-science-hasn-t-changed-public-guidance-n1173006 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/do-you-need-mask-...
- joshribakoff 5y ago
  Whether masks could be effective was never in debate. If you recall, they were concerned people would use the masks incorrectly and that could do more harm, as well as potential shortages in the supply chain and getting the masks to the most important workers. I don’t recall the CDC ever saying “masks do not work”
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    Fauchi, presumed spokesman for the CDC, came as close as possible to saying so, and/or was taken as such. If that early statement can be justified by "fog of war" changing virus-related information at that time, then Fauchi should have allowed himself that complication. By offering "there were not enough masks available then" as a later explanation, he seems to have explained it essentially by saying he lied. In doing so he apparently threw away a substantial amount of his credibility, for many people. At worst a lying move; at best a lightweight move with lives at risk.
- andreilys 5y ago
  I don't think the CDC made a mistake - I think they intentionally "lied" for the sake of the public good, aka the Noble Lie. Rather than saying "Hey lets hold off on buying masks so that we have enough for essential care workers" they instead said "do not buy masks because they aren't effective, or might even make risk of infection higher!"

herbst 5y ago

Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning, a few months later he explained that this was wrong and the only reason he said masks are not necessary was because there weren't enough and private people were already stockpiling it anyway. So people wore masks and life went on. I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things

paganel 5y ago
> I still don't understand why so many countries can't be more honest about these things Depending on the jurisdiction and on your political opponents what the Swiss virus guy did is liable to send you to prison for intentionally lying and acting on that lie when employed as a public servant. Most probably the political debate is less vicious in Switzerland and that won't happen to your virus guy, but where I live (EU country from Eastern Europe) that would have been very dangerous for him to do in regards to his freedom. I guess that's why a lot of politicians double down on their lies, because if they're caught there's a small chance of them going to prison for them, so why take the risk?
- herbst 5y ago
  Interesting point. Guess it comes down to his words as the initial wording was more like 'in the current situation it is not necessary to wear masks' not trump's vision of 'masks don't work' which would have been an obvious lie.
  - johnchristopher 5y ago
    In Belgium we had a third version: "masks are dangerous because people don't know how to adjust and wear them, they touch them too much (spreading the virus) and masks give a false sense of security that will lead to more contagions". The chief of our CDC equivalent said he was shopping in supermarket without mask. Then they admitted saying that because stocks were too low and wearing a mask was gradually made mandatory and they told us to make our own masks.
johnchristopher 5y ago

walrus01 5y ago

They specifically recommended not wearing N95 masks, which were very scarce and in limited supply at the beginning of the pandemic. With the goal of maintaining the very limited supply for medical personnel, while cargo planes moved around the globe and production ramped up.

selimthegrim 5y ago
N95s also need to be vacuum fit IIRC for max efficacy
wrycoder 5y ago
They still are.

shlant 5y ago

> So yes it has lost its credibility. I feel like this black and white, "you get one chance" kind of bridge burning is very unproductive. When you look at these agencies not as omniscient entities but as what they are - a collaborative effort of many individuals - then you allow for the evolution of understanding. People can be wrong, especially in regards to more novel situations, so why should we view our institutions as any different? Yes having more eyes and varied perspectives means that it may make sense to expect something more reliable than an individual, but that doesn't make it infallible and IMO that's ok.

janto 5y ago
Organisations of professions should be held to extremely high standards. They are entrusted with more and in return given more privileges than any simple "collection of people".
- shlant 5y ago
  as I said, it makes sense to expect more from governmental bodies but that still does not mean an expectation of infallibility. High standards and impossible standards are worlds apart.
andreilys 5y ago
It's not about being wrong, it's about intentionally misleading the public because you believe they are incapable of handling the truth (i.e. we have supply chain issues with masks because surprise outsourcing your supply chains to other countries has fatal flaws)

benjaminwootton 5y ago

Genuine question, why did they not lose credibility when they started recommending them due to political pressure rather than “the science”? As I understand it, there is still very flimsy scientific backing for the effectiveness of masks.

a9h74j 5y ago
AFAIK at best it depends upon number of layers, what kind of layers, fit, droplets (and size) vs. aerosols, humidity, interpersonal distance and dwelling time, and of course ventilation. Given the framing of the "mask debate" in the US with essentially no frequent or defining mention of face covering quality/qualities, essentially it seems like Cargo-cult science at the restrictions/policy level. There are people who meet the requirements essentially breathing through stretched or O(500um) single-layer mesh. I have not looked closely enough at electret properties to know if meshes with larger pore sizes can really stop 0.06um virus particles. (Or 10nm according to this https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-Compared-to-Other-Things.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-C... )
mensetmanusman 5y ago
For aerosols, cloth masks are an order of magnitude less effective than dipole charged N95 (which attract sub micron scale particles with a built-in electric charge in the fibers, it’s a high-tech process.)