15 ms·

> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime A lot of it bo

> Like, having this magic, absolutely mind boggling potion that prevents serious illness and death isn't already the lottery win of our lifetime A lot of it boils down to people not trusting what they're seeing. Frankly, governments have done the world a disservice by speaking before they really had all the information at the start of the pandemic. In Canada at least an insane amount of what was said turned out to be completely false, or worse harmfully false (ie: no masks, isn't airborne, ect). As a result, lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, and experts, at this point. I think if we approach the problem with that in mind we might win more people over than telling them "listen to experts", since for the past year and a half experts have been wrong almost as often as they have been right.

avz 5y ago
> [...] lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, [...]. Changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in is a fundamental ability that underlies numerous activities from scientific research to debugging software to driving on a congested road network. Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? Would it really be preferable if policy remained frozen to whatever people thought best on day one?
- AwaAwa 5y ago
  Changing your beliefs on the words of your "betters", under pressure, umpteen times is not conducive to trust. Perhaps if our masters in government had heeded the story of "the boy who cried wolf", then things might have been different.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- derekp7 5y ago
  The problem is that the a large chunk of the population aren't scientist so they don't understand the principles of the scientific method. And they aren't software developers, they don't have the mindset for it. And have you seen the way many people drive? There is a reason why the term "defensive driving" was coined.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    I think a good understanding of the scientific method, skepticism and fact checking should be taught in school as early as possible. The only thing students get is material presented as the truth that they have to faithfully accept. They are almost never taught how to deal with unreliable material. It made sense in the pre-internet age where finding information was the hard part, but now, it is the opposite: too much information. So we should focus more on how to filter it. We had a "general knowledge" class in college and it was an important part of it. We had to make essays and presentations about random subjects and we were judged by our ability to synthesize and verify information. Copy-pasting was actually encouraged, and long as it was from a good source and presented in a way that isn't misleading. The unfortunate thing is that we should have done exercises like that in primary school and not wait until college.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      > I think a good understanding of the scientific method, skepticism and fact checking should be taught in school as early as possible. It is taught in schools, and taught young. The people who understand the scientific method have been doing it every year since the sixth grade. They did science fair projects, etc. I just looked up modern educational standards, and kids are taught in grade six the scientific method and how to execute experiments using it. The problem is, lots of people suck at school. They didn't care about it and their parents didn't care about it, so they didn't retain anything. There are an awful lot of adults in society that couldn't pass a fifth grade math test.
      - tehwebguy 5y ago
        Yeah it was taught very strangely IMO in my schools. There was always such a goofy focus on the dumbest science fair projects that were probably just as likely to reach a completely wrong conclusion instead of relating the process to the real world and how we as a society continue to learn how the world works in any scenarios newer than Redi’s meat / maggots experiment from 1668!
  - berkes 5y ago
- jader201 5y ago
  By that logic, who’s to say “things won’t change” again, such that they find there is cause for concern after all? I’m not saying that’s what I believe, but if you’re admitting that we’re “changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in”, that also implies that we didn’t — and may still not — have all the data in front of us to make decisions.
  - foogazi 5y ago
    > that also implies that we didn’t — and may still not — have all the data in front of us to make decisions. We surely don’t - but we have more data than a year ago. And a year from now we’ll have even more
  - topranks 5y ago
    Indeed but what should we do? Nothing??? We have to make the best decision for ourselves and the society around us based on the best knowledge we have. Yes science always allows for things to be disproven, but if we follow your logic we’d not use any medicines or treatments. Come on.
    - jader201 5y ago
      Certainly not. Just saying that we can’t be too hard on the folks that are a little hesitant with the vaccine as things evolve. Simply have a bit of empathy, at least for folks that are simply uncertain about how to handle things for themselves and their family (vs. those trying to stop the world from getting vaccinated). I’m fully vaccinated, but I know some that I wouldn’t consider “antivaxx” but are just not sure about this one for them/their families, and I’m trying not to be judgmental of them.
    - daddylongstroke 5y ago
      Yes, nothing. Especially when you see the mortality rate is as low as it has turned out to be; there is very little reason for even 50% of the world to be vaccinated. Why would states be holding lotteries for only the vaccinated? Bizarre incentives if you ask me; dubious and unethical as well, since this is effectively a massive human trial. Most of the people I know that won't be getting a vaccine, feel the risk of serious complications from Covid19 are low for them and their families. Many of them have already had it and found it to have the same effects as all of the previous corona-viruses we've experienced. We have immune systems for a reason (as poor as they've grown in the Western world over the last 80 years or so), and believing that vaccinating against every bug that comes along, seems to be aligned with negative natural selection, which effectively sets us all up for a super bug extinction level event. At the least 50% of the world should stay clear of all vaccines if we want to survive long-term as a species. I would also like you to consider, that many of the anti-vaxx community, as virologists by profession. Many find the risks associated with vaccines (not just Covid19 but all), as often outweighing the benefits they purport to provide. My family and I won't be getting the vaccine for many reasons (we have several professional medical practitioners in the family by the way). One being, we know someone directly involved in creating a mRNA-based vaccine at a large gov-funded biotech co.: their job on the project was based on proving that their employer did undertake the burden of attempting to get the compound that surrounds the mRNA bits and keeps them stable inside the solution, to pass through the human or other mammalian system. Here's the kicker, they can't, and everybody in the business knows they can't (at least not yet), as they've been unable to get this compound out of the blood and organs once introduced. It is synthesized largely from plants, so they consider it "natural". :-D But the truth is, we don't have any data on long term exposure and retention of this compound inside of our blood stream, organs, and other tissues. The mRNA-based vaccines would not have passed scrutiny had they not been granted emergency approval, and yes they've been working on them for a decade+.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
  Unfortunately in some places they did it when they already knew it was untrue but continued anyway "to prevent panic and shortage of masks supply". Then they turned 180 and made masks obligatory, even outside at all times, which is another extreme.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Public health officials knew perfectly that masks give some protection against viruses in general, it was already known 100 years ago. They lied so that the masks don't get bought up instead of just coordinating the distributions using govenmental channels.
  - topranks 5y ago
    No they were wrong about the virus’ ability to stay airborne. They didn’t lie, they made a mistake. And when it became apparent they changed the advice. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...
- quanticle 5y ago
  The problem isn't that our authorities are changing their beliefs based on new evidence coming in. The problem is that our authorities are changing beliefs based on the current political situation, pretending that that reflects shifting evidence and, worst of all, not admitting that they've changed their views. Let's take the current debate over the "lab leak" hypothesis as an example. A large amount of the evidence, both for and against the lab leak hypothesis dates back to March/April/May of 2020. Yet, when the lab leak hypothesis was raised around that time period, it was immediately and vociferously dismissed by the media as a racist ploy to distract from the government's shambolic handling of the pandemic. When the hypothesis was raised again, this year, it was treated as a serious possibility that deserved a full and thorough investigation. What changed? It wasn't the evidence -- the evidence has been present all along. What changed was the political environment that suddenly made it possible to speak of a lab leak without sounding like tinfoil-hatted crackpot. As a result, now this previously unmentionable hypothesis is now getting its due consideration by the media. However, the media isn't admitting that a change occurred. Instead, what the average person is seeing is mainstream media outlets shifting seamlessly from, "The lab leak hypothesis is a racist lie," to "The lab leak hypothesis is a serious allegation that deserves a thorough investigation." It's like the scene from 1984, where the Inner Party representative switches seamlessly mid-speech from discussing the ongoing war against Eurasia to the ongoing war against Eastasia. We saw a similar phenomenon take place last year over masks. There were warnings about the virus being airborne as far back as January of 2021. As late as March, you had Time magazine saying that wearing a mask was "superstitious behavior" [1]. Over the next two to three weeks, the advice rapidly shifted, from "masks are a sign of unreasonable paranoia" to "masks are mandatory, and anyone not wearing them is putting everyone around them in danger". Was that due to a shift in the evidence? No. As noted above, there was ample warning that the virus was airbone, and many people were taking appropriate precautions even in the absence of official guidance. What shifted was the political environment. Moreover, then, just as now, no media outlet ever admitted that it had given incorrect advice. There were individual journalists who (to their credit) admitted a certain level of responsibility, but, as far as I know, no major mainstream media outlet has come forward and said, "You know what? We screwed up, and we apologize." Instead , we see silent corrections that rewrite the past without admitting any kind of fault. Heck, just compare the headline on the Time article today [2] to the headline on the archived version. The headline was silently updated with a much more moderate point, and a caveat about changing CDC guidance was added. But there was no formal correction published anywhere that said, "You know that article we printed last week about masks being bogus? Yeah, that was wrong, and we're sorry." Honestly, after seeing the performance of the media in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, I'm surprised that more people aren't as cynical about the "official story" as the cashier in the sibling thread. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200305052928/https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200305052928/https://time.com/... [2]: https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/ https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/
- sneak 5y ago
  > Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? Because when it comes to persuading hundreds of millions of people, it is often better to be certain than to be right or to flip-flop. That's a fact of leadership, regardless of whether you or I as scientists like it. Also, they didn't just revise their statements with new information, they actively lied (the no masks thing) in a paternalistic way to deceive people into thinking they didn't need masks (so the masks would stay available for front-line medical staff). That plan obviously backfired terribly.
  - wildmanx 5y ago
    What's the alternative? Be honest? The moment a governor goes in front of cameras saying "no need to hoard toilet paper" is the moment right when everybody rushes and hoards toilet paper. So they tried saying "toilet paper does not work". (Not literally, but I'm using it as a metaphor for masks, obviously.) That strategy backfired a bit, but worked better than outright saying "Don't buy masks cause front-line workers need them". Had they said that then next day front-line workers wouldn't have gotten any. The only alternative I see is to remove the necessary supplies from the free market and put them under government control so that front line workers get them no matter what the mob does. But in freedom land, the free market is holy, so that doesn't work over there.
- lodi 5y ago
  > Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? That's not the problem. Arrogance is the problem. We were led to believe that X was established scientific consensus one week and ¬X the next. Real science has error bars and confidence intervals. If you're projecting from a small amount of data, the responsible thing to do is to disclose how uncertain your conclusions are. (Edit: maybe the real science did have confidence intervals; the public communication certainly didn't though.) Secondly, we had many clear contradictions over the past year. How can it be dangerous to attend an outdoor soccer game but safe to attend a BLM protest? How can it be shamefully unsafe to walk past someone in a corridor without masks and 6ft of social distancing but totally fine to sit and eat in a restaurant for an unbounded amount of time? Also it really doesn't help public trust when for example Fauci openly admits that he lied to the public about mask efficacy to preserve supplies for hospitals, but of course now you can trust him to be telling the truth on this other thing here.
TravelPiglet 5y ago
Anti-vaxers would have spread the same thing regardless of government info and prediction rate.
- caeril 5y ago
  This is certifiably untrue. You should take a look at the "traditional" anti-vaxxers, who are a very small minority, and compare them to the recent ones, who are much, much larger. The archetype of a current anti-covid-vaxxer is one who had no problem getting their kids vaccinated for polio, for DTAP, the chickenpox, and usually had no hesitation about getting the annual flu shot. These people are categorically different, and much more numerous, than the tinfoil-hat-vaccines-cause-autism crowd. One should surmise that the motivations are also categorically different, and I think you'll find if you actually speak to them, that distrust of the enormous governmental and institutional pressure is a significant factor.
  - atq2119 5y ago
    > The archetype of a current anti-covid-vaxxer [...] usually had no hesitation about getting the annual flu shot. Really? At least around here, flu vaccination rates aren't very high. I don't have data, but there's plenty of potential for overlap between anti-covid-vaxxers and people who don't get flu shots (most of which are perfectly normal).
E8zrhvz8qWbPolu 5y ago
I'm in Canada. I don't like the policy of one dose for everyone first. I believe the right thing to do is to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups with two shots first. So, what I'm doing is waiting until second doses are being offered to my age group before signing up for my first dose. I'm not anti-vax by any means, but that doesn't mean I think the government is doing a superlative job either.
- derekp7 5y ago
  Something I haven't seen discussed is what would have happened if the initial shots went to the 20-35 year old crowd (the ones that are out and about, partying, and have a number of super spreaders in that cohort)? Would that have done more to stop the virus spread then to vaccinate the more vulnerable (but already self isolated) people first? This would never be an option politically, but I'd like to know if it would have had a better shot of stopping the virus spread?
  - E8zrhvz8qWbPolu 5y ago
    It's an interesting idea, and it looks like you're not the only one to think about this: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/coronavirus/study-one-age-group-responsible-majority-coronavirus-spread-177654 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/coronavirus/study-one-age-... https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6536/eabe8372 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6536/eabe8372
nikolay 5y ago
Governments lied to people on health topics so many times already, so why should people trust them - from cigarettes, through lead gasoline, to saturated fats. We all get the theory of mRNA vaccines, but we tend to oversimplify the most complex system in the universe - the human body. There is evidence that these spike proteins don't just get presented on the surface of the cells but circulate in the bloodstream, cross the brain-blood barrier, and cause myocarditis. So, they are not exactly what we thought about them a year ago. Also, here on HN, several times was hypothesized that a retrovirus could indeed turn the RNA into DNA; although the chance is slim to none when you vaccinate billions, it will happen. Note: I'm fully-vaccinated with Pfizer, but got severe palpitations for days after the first and second shots (which are symptoms of myocarditis), my wife had the same plus a pretty rapid heartbeat for 3 days, and I also got some never seen before skin issues (extreme dryness of certain areas of the skin. Fully-vaccinated people still an spread the viruses, just not as well as unvaccinated, and people who went thru the course of the disease probably should not get vaccinated as they get a better protection (immune to more than the spike protein), and should spare the doses for the billions still unvaccinated. The drive to vaccinated people who had COVID-19 was an economical and political, not scientific. Removing the face mask mandate early is also non-scientific, but political and economical. So, why should we blindly trust authorities? The vaccine manufacturers have no liability, their practically have emergency use authorizations, not approvals either. Using certified masks (like in some European countries), getting adequate Vitamin D3 (along with vitamin K), and zinc with zinc ionophores should have been #1 priority, but this basica and benign prophylaxis has been totally underplayed, which also contributes to the lack of trust in the government.
- daddylongstroke 5y ago
  >Using certified masks (like in some European countries), getting adequate Vitamin D3 (along with vitamin K), and zinc with zinc ionophores should have been #1 priority, but this basica and benign prophylaxis has been totally underplayed, which also contributes to the lack of trust in the government. I think you nailed it on the head there. Really the number one priority should be to stay the hell out of the medical system. Once you're in the medical system, you know you've fucked up (or just had an accident, whichever). My wife is a triage nurse now after 20 years bedside, and spends her days trying to talk people, who are calling their doctors to get a magic pill, into changing their lifestyles (diet largely) so that they don't require a pill. Most often, these people are not interested in a no-pill solution. They are happy to keep treating the problem, especially since most of them seem to be highly uninformed by the negative long-term health consequences of the meds they're taking. We have a close friend whose long-term doctor just prescribed her statins, for a flutter which was noted by her Apple Watch. She and her family, has no history of heart or other health issues. Actually, she's in her 60s and has never even had the flu or as much as a cold, until Cov19 got her in Feb. of 2020. They did not draw any blood work, but she had an echocardiagram which came back clean. When she asked the doctor why he would prescribe statins without doing any blood work, or having any other evidence, he said "this has become our standard procedure for anyone reporting a flutter or palpatation, plus those Apple Watches are very accurate!". I shit you not. This is the medical establishment we're all trying to stay healthy despite of.
dlp211 5y ago
It turns out that not all things can be known and when giving advice, you go with the best known data...which at times can be wrong. This is literally how science works. We don't always have the liberty to wait for a near certain answer. And the experts haven't been wrong for a year and a half, the experts were working with bad or incomplete data for a few months. Their advice for the past year, wear masks, socially distance, get the vaccine, has been correct.
- ghoward 5y ago
  Has their advice for the past year been correct? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460858
  - dlp211 5y ago
    If masks and social distancing didn't work, you need to have some idea of why the Flu had its mildest year ever. Also, countless people have demonstrated with pulseox meters that blood oxygen saturation is unaffected by mask wearing, so while those findings are interesting, you are far too quick to draw any type of conclusions that masks don't work and/or are harmful.
    - ghoward 5y ago
      And people are far too quick to think that masks do work and/or are not harmful. What happened to the Precautionary Principle?
      - dlp211 5y ago
        Sorry, the entire medical field exists as a counterpoint to the idea that masks are harmful.
        ghoward 5y ago
        The medical field uses masks in the environment they were made for. And they are changed regularly. In the non-medical world, people don't do that. If people used masks properly, I wouldn't have much of an argument, but they don't, so I do.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
Frankly, governments have done the world a disservice by speaking before they really had all the information at the start of the pandemic. They were doing the best they could to manage a crisis that it was their job to manage in an unprecedented situation. If people expected them to have perfect answers and solutions, they had unrealistic expectations.
- imbnwa 5y ago
  Yeah, I don't get this "lost trust" line, that's like a military commander telling his soldiers to go left, then when gunfire comes from the left, tells them to go right, but the soldiers object to his new order and lose confidence in him because he already said go left.
- rorykoehler 5y ago
  Their best wasn’t very good. First thing is shut down flights from China. I mean it is a no brainier and I distinctly remember thinking wtf as we all waited and twiddled our thumbs because WHO said it wasn’t a pandemic yet. Yes we know it’s not a pandemic yet which happens to be the optimum time to act decisively so it doesn’t become one. Inexcusable.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
    Yes, I couldn't get it either. The whole world was watching China in horror fight with the virus and at the same time the planes traveled easily to and from China for a long time as if nothing was happening. As if someone really wanted to invite the inevitable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
marcodiego 5y ago
> I think if we approach the problem with that in mind we might win more people over than telling them "listen to experts", since for the past year and a half experts have been wrong almost as often as they have been right. I was educated to fear more those who are never wrong.
sneak 5y ago
I try to take heart in the fact that increased skepticism is, in general, a good thing for society.

avz 5y ago

> [...] lots of people see what looks like the "story changing", and distrust anything coming out of their government, [...]. Changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in is a fundamental ability that underlies numerous activities from scientific research to debugging software to driving on a congested road network. Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? Would it really be preferable if policy remained frozen to whatever people thought best on day one?

AwaAwa 5y ago
Changing your beliefs on the words of your "betters", under pressure, umpteen times is not conducive to trust. Perhaps if our masters in government had heeded the story of "the boy who cried wolf", then things might have been different.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
derekp7 5y ago
The problem is that the a large chunk of the population aren't scientist so they don't understand the principles of the scientific method. And they aren't software developers, they don't have the mindset for it. And have you seen the way many people drive? There is a reason why the term "defensive driving" was coined.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  I think a good understanding of the scientific method, skepticism and fact checking should be taught in school as early as possible. The only thing students get is material presented as the truth that they have to faithfully accept. They are almost never taught how to deal with unreliable material. It made sense in the pre-internet age where finding information was the hard part, but now, it is the opposite: too much information. So we should focus more on how to filter it. We had a "general knowledge" class in college and it was an important part of it. We had to make essays and presentations about random subjects and we were judged by our ability to synthesize and verify information. Copy-pasting was actually encouraged, and long as it was from a good source and presented in a way that isn't misleading. The unfortunate thing is that we should have done exercises like that in primary school and not wait until college.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    > I think a good understanding of the scientific method, skepticism and fact checking should be taught in school as early as possible. It is taught in schools, and taught young. The people who understand the scientific method have been doing it every year since the sixth grade. They did science fair projects, etc. I just looked up modern educational standards, and kids are taught in grade six the scientific method and how to execute experiments using it. The problem is, lots of people suck at school. They didn't care about it and their parents didn't care about it, so they didn't retain anything. There are an awful lot of adults in society that couldn't pass a fifth grade math test.
    - tehwebguy 5y ago
      Yeah it was taught very strangely IMO in my schools. There was always such a goofy focus on the dumbest science fair projects that were probably just as likely to reach a completely wrong conclusion instead of relating the process to the real world and how we as a society continue to learn how the world works in any scenarios newer than Redi’s meat / maggots experiment from 1668!
- berkes 5y ago
jader201 5y ago
By that logic, who’s to say “things won’t change” again, such that they find there is cause for concern after all? I’m not saying that’s what I believe, but if you’re admitting that we’re “changing and updating our beliefs as evidence comes in”, that also implies that we didn’t — and may still not — have all the data in front of us to make decisions.
- foogazi 5y ago
  > that also implies that we didn’t — and may still not — have all the data in front of us to make decisions. We surely don’t - but we have more data than a year ago. And a year from now we’ll have even more
- topranks 5y ago
  Indeed but what should we do? Nothing??? We have to make the best decision for ourselves and the society around us based on the best knowledge we have. Yes science always allows for things to be disproven, but if we follow your logic we’d not use any medicines or treatments. Come on.
  - jader201 5y ago
    Certainly not. Just saying that we can’t be too hard on the folks that are a little hesitant with the vaccine as things evolve. Simply have a bit of empathy, at least for folks that are simply uncertain about how to handle things for themselves and their family (vs. those trying to stop the world from getting vaccinated). I’m fully vaccinated, but I know some that I wouldn’t consider “antivaxx” but are just not sure about this one for them/their families, and I’m trying not to be judgmental of them.
  - daddylongstroke 5y ago
    Yes, nothing. Especially when you see the mortality rate is as low as it has turned out to be; there is very little reason for even 50% of the world to be vaccinated. Why would states be holding lotteries for only the vaccinated? Bizarre incentives if you ask me; dubious and unethical as well, since this is effectively a massive human trial. Most of the people I know that won't be getting a vaccine, feel the risk of serious complications from Covid19 are low for them and their families. Many of them have already had it and found it to have the same effects as all of the previous corona-viruses we've experienced. We have immune systems for a reason (as poor as they've grown in the Western world over the last 80 years or so), and believing that vaccinating against every bug that comes along, seems to be aligned with negative natural selection, which effectively sets us all up for a super bug extinction level event. At the least 50% of the world should stay clear of all vaccines if we want to survive long-term as a species. I would also like you to consider, that many of the anti-vaxx community, as virologists by profession. Many find the risks associated with vaccines (not just Covid19 but all), as often outweighing the benefits they purport to provide. My family and I won't be getting the vaccine for many reasons (we have several professional medical practitioners in the family by the way). One being, we know someone directly involved in creating a mRNA-based vaccine at a large gov-funded biotech co.: their job on the project was based on proving that their employer did undertake the burden of attempting to get the compound that surrounds the mRNA bits and keeps them stable inside the solution, to pass through the human or other mammalian system. Here's the kicker, they can't, and everybody in the business knows they can't (at least not yet), as they've been unable to get this compound out of the blood and organs once introduced. It is synthesized largely from plants, so they consider it "natural". :-D But the truth is, we don't have any data on long term exposure and retention of this compound inside of our blood stream, organs, and other tissues. The mRNA-based vaccines would not have passed scrutiny had they not been granted emergency approval, and yes they've been working on them for a decade+.
dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
Unfortunately in some places they did it when they already knew it was untrue but continued anyway "to prevent panic and shortage of masks supply". Then they turned 180 and made masks obligatory, even outside at all times, which is another extreme.
xiphias2 5y ago
Public health officials knew perfectly that masks give some protection against viruses in general, it was already known 100 years ago. They lied so that the masks don't get bought up instead of just coordinating the distributions using govenmental channels.
- topranks 5y ago
  No they were wrong about the virus’ ability to stay airborne. They didn’t lie, they made a mistake. And when it became apparent they changed the advice. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/ https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...
quanticle 5y ago
The problem isn't that our authorities are changing their beliefs based on new evidence coming in. The problem is that our authorities are changing beliefs based on the current political situation, pretending that that reflects shifting evidence and, worst of all, not admitting that they've changed their views. Let's take the current debate over the "lab leak" hypothesis as an example. A large amount of the evidence, both for and against the lab leak hypothesis dates back to March/April/May of 2020. Yet, when the lab leak hypothesis was raised around that time period, it was immediately and vociferously dismissed by the media as a racist ploy to distract from the government's shambolic handling of the pandemic. When the hypothesis was raised again, this year, it was treated as a serious possibility that deserved a full and thorough investigation. What changed? It wasn't the evidence -- the evidence has been present all along. What changed was the political environment that suddenly made it possible to speak of a lab leak without sounding like tinfoil-hatted crackpot. As a result, now this previously unmentionable hypothesis is now getting its due consideration by the media. However, the media isn't admitting that a change occurred. Instead, what the average person is seeing is mainstream media outlets shifting seamlessly from, "The lab leak hypothesis is a racist lie," to "The lab leak hypothesis is a serious allegation that deserves a thorough investigation." It's like the scene from 1984, where the Inner Party representative switches seamlessly mid-speech from discussing the ongoing war against Eurasia to the ongoing war against Eastasia. We saw a similar phenomenon take place last year over masks. There were warnings about the virus being airborne as far back as January of 2021. As late as March, you had Time magazine saying that wearing a mask was "superstitious behavior" [1]. Over the next two to three weeks, the advice rapidly shifted, from "masks are a sign of unreasonable paranoia" to "masks are mandatory, and anyone not wearing them is putting everyone around them in danger". Was that due to a shift in the evidence? No. As noted above, there was ample warning that the virus was airbone, and many people were taking appropriate precautions even in the absence of official guidance. What shifted was the political environment. Moreover, then, just as now, no media outlet ever admitted that it had given incorrect advice. There were individual journalists who (to their credit) admitted a certain level of responsibility, but, as far as I know, no major mainstream media outlet has come forward and said, "You know what? We screwed up, and we apologize." Instead , we see silent corrections that rewrite the past without admitting any kind of fault. Heck, just compare the headline on the Time article today [2] to the headline on the archived version. The headline was silently updated with a much more moderate point, and a caveat about changing CDC guidance was added. But there was no formal correction published anywhere that said, "You know that article we printed last week about masks being bogus? Yeah, that was wrong, and we're sorry." Honestly, after seeing the performance of the media in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, I'm surprised that more people aren't as cynical about the "official story" as the cashier in the sibling thread. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20200305052928/https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200305052928/https://time.com/... [2]: https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/ https://time.com/5794729/coronavirus-face-masks/
sneak 5y ago
> Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? Because when it comes to persuading hundreds of millions of people, it is often better to be certain than to be right or to flip-flop. That's a fact of leadership, regardless of whether you or I as scientists like it. Also, they didn't just revise their statements with new information, they actively lied (the no masks thing) in a paternalistic way to deceive people into thinking they didn't need masks (so the masks would stay available for front-line medical staff). That plan obviously backfired terribly.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  What's the alternative? Be honest? The moment a governor goes in front of cameras saying "no need to hoard toilet paper" is the moment right when everybody rushes and hoards toilet paper. So they tried saying "toilet paper does not work". (Not literally, but I'm using it as a metaphor for masks, obviously.) That strategy backfired a bit, but worked better than outright saying "Don't buy masks cause front-line workers need them". Had they said that then next day front-line workers wouldn't have gotten any. The only alternative I see is to remove the necessary supplies from the free market and put them under government control so that front line workers get them no matter what the mob does. But in freedom land, the free market is holy, so that doesn't work over there.
lodi 5y ago
> Why is it a problem for public health officials to update and change policy as we learn more about the virus? That's not the problem. Arrogance is the problem. We were led to believe that X was established scientific consensus one week and ¬X the next. Real science has error bars and confidence intervals. If you're projecting from a small amount of data, the responsible thing to do is to disclose how uncertain your conclusions are. (Edit: maybe the real science did have confidence intervals; the public communication certainly didn't though.) Secondly, we had many clear contradictions over the past year. How can it be dangerous to attend an outdoor soccer game but safe to attend a BLM protest? How can it be shamefully unsafe to walk past someone in a corridor without masks and 6ft of social distancing but totally fine to sit and eat in a restaurant for an unbounded amount of time? Also it really doesn't help public trust when for example Fauci openly admits that he lied to the public about mask efficacy to preserve supplies for hospitals, but of course now you can trust him to be telling the truth on this other thing here.

TravelPiglet 5y ago

Anti-vaxers would have spread the same thing regardless of government info and prediction rate.

caeril 5y ago
This is certifiably untrue. You should take a look at the "traditional" anti-vaxxers, who are a very small minority, and compare them to the recent ones, who are much, much larger. The archetype of a current anti-covid-vaxxer is one who had no problem getting their kids vaccinated for polio, for DTAP, the chickenpox, and usually had no hesitation about getting the annual flu shot. These people are categorically different, and much more numerous, than the tinfoil-hat-vaccines-cause-autism crowd. One should surmise that the motivations are also categorically different, and I think you'll find if you actually speak to them, that distrust of the enormous governmental and institutional pressure is a significant factor.
- atq2119 5y ago
  > The archetype of a current anti-covid-vaxxer [...] usually had no hesitation about getting the annual flu shot. Really? At least around here, flu vaccination rates aren't very high. I don't have data, but there's plenty of potential for overlap between anti-covid-vaxxers and people who don't get flu shots (most of which are perfectly normal).

E8zrhvz8qWbPolu 5y ago

I'm in Canada. I don't like the policy of one dose for everyone first. I believe the right thing to do is to vaccinate the most vulnerable groups with two shots first. So, what I'm doing is waiting until second doses are being offered to my age group before signing up for my first dose. I'm not anti-vax by any means, but that doesn't mean I think the government is doing a superlative job either.

derekp7 5y ago
Something I haven't seen discussed is what would have happened if the initial shots went to the 20-35 year old crowd (the ones that are out and about, partying, and have a number of super spreaders in that cohort)? Would that have done more to stop the virus spread then to vaccinate the more vulnerable (but already self isolated) people first? This would never be an option politically, but I'd like to know if it would have had a better shot of stopping the virus spread?
- E8zrhvz8qWbPolu 5y ago
  It's an interesting idea, and it looks like you're not the only one to think about this: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/coronavirus/study-one-age-group-responsible-majority-coronavirus-spread-177654 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/coronavirus/study-one-age-... https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6536/eabe8372 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6536/eabe8372

nikolay 5y ago

Governments lied to people on health topics so many times already, so why should people trust them - from cigarettes, through lead gasoline, to saturated fats. We all get the theory of mRNA vaccines, but we tend to oversimplify the most complex system in the universe - the human body. There is evidence that these spike proteins don't just get presented on the surface of the cells but circulate in the bloodstream, cross the brain-blood barrier, and cause myocarditis. So, they are not exactly what we thought about them a year ago. Also, here on HN, several times was hypothesized that a retrovirus could indeed turn the RNA into DNA; although the chance is slim to none when you vaccinate billions, it will happen. Note: I'm fully-vaccinated with Pfizer, but got severe palpitations for days after the first and second shots (which are symptoms of myocarditis), my wife had the same plus a pretty rapid heartbeat for 3 days, and I also got some never seen before skin issues (extreme dryness of certain areas of the skin. Fully-vaccinated people still an spread the viruses, just not as well as unvaccinated, and people who went thru the course of the disease probably should not get vaccinated as they get a better protection (immune to more than the spike protein), and should spare the doses for the billions still unvaccinated. The drive to vaccinated people who had COVID-19 was an economical and political, not scientific. Removing the face mask mandate early is also non-scientific, but political and economical. So, why should we blindly trust authorities? The vaccine manufacturers have no liability, their practically have emergency use authorizations, not approvals either. Using certified masks (like in some European countries), getting adequate Vitamin D3 (along with vitamin K), and zinc with zinc ionophores should have been #1 priority, but this basica and benign prophylaxis has been totally underplayed, which also contributes to the lack of trust in the government.

daddylongstroke 5y ago
>Using certified masks (like in some European countries), getting adequate Vitamin D3 (along with vitamin K), and zinc with zinc ionophores should have been #1 priority, but this basica and benign prophylaxis has been totally underplayed, which also contributes to the lack of trust in the government. I think you nailed it on the head there. Really the number one priority should be to stay the hell out of the medical system. Once you're in the medical system, you know you've fucked up (or just had an accident, whichever). My wife is a triage nurse now after 20 years bedside, and spends her days trying to talk people, who are calling their doctors to get a magic pill, into changing their lifestyles (diet largely) so that they don't require a pill. Most often, these people are not interested in a no-pill solution. They are happy to keep treating the problem, especially since most of them seem to be highly uninformed by the negative long-term health consequences of the meds they're taking. We have a close friend whose long-term doctor just prescribed her statins, for a flutter which was noted by her Apple Watch. She and her family, has no history of heart or other health issues. Actually, she's in her 60s and has never even had the flu or as much as a cold, until Cov19 got her in Feb. of 2020. They did not draw any blood work, but she had an echocardiagram which came back clean. When she asked the doctor why he would prescribe statins without doing any blood work, or having any other evidence, he said "this has become our standard procedure for anyone reporting a flutter or palpatation, plus those Apple Watches are very accurate!". I shit you not. This is the medical establishment we're all trying to stay healthy despite of.

dlp211 5y ago

It turns out that not all things can be known and when giving advice, you go with the best known data...which at times can be wrong. This is literally how science works. We don't always have the liberty to wait for a near certain answer. And the experts haven't been wrong for a year and a half, the experts were working with bad or incomplete data for a few months. Their advice for the past year, wear masks, socially distance, get the vaccine, has been correct.

ghoward 5y ago
Has their advice for the past year been correct? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460858 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27460858
- dlp211 5y ago
  If masks and social distancing didn't work, you need to have some idea of why the Flu had its mildest year ever. Also, countless people have demonstrated with pulseox meters that blood oxygen saturation is unaffected by mask wearing, so while those findings are interesting, you are far too quick to draw any type of conclusions that masks don't work and/or are harmful.
  - ghoward 5y ago
    And people are far too quick to think that masks do work and/or are not harmful. What happened to the Precautionary Principle?
    - dlp211 5y ago
      Sorry, the entire medical field exists as a counterpoint to the idea that masks are harmful.
      - ghoward 5y ago
        The medical field uses masks in the environment they were made for. And they are changed regularly. In the non-medical world, people don't do that. If people used masks properly, I wouldn't have much of an argument, but they don't, so I do.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

Frankly, governments have done the world a disservice by speaking before they really had all the information at the start of the pandemic. They were doing the best they could to manage a crisis that it was their job to manage in an unprecedented situation. If people expected them to have perfect answers and solutions, they had unrealistic expectations.

imbnwa 5y ago
Yeah, I don't get this "lost trust" line, that's like a military commander telling his soldiers to go left, then when gunfire comes from the left, tells them to go right, but the soldiers object to his new order and lose confidence in him because he already said go left.
rorykoehler 5y ago
Their best wasn’t very good. First thing is shut down flights from China. I mean it is a no brainier and I distinctly remember thinking wtf as we all waited and twiddled our thumbs because WHO said it wasn’t a pandemic yet. Yes we know it’s not a pandemic yet which happens to be the optimum time to act decisively so it doesn’t become one. Inexcusable.
- dvfjsdhgfv 5y ago
  Yes, I couldn't get it either. The whole world was watching China in horror fight with the virus and at the same time the planes traveled easily to and from China for a long time as if nothing was happening. As if someone really wanted to invite the inevitable.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

marcodiego 5y ago

> I think if we approach the problem with that in mind we might win more people over than telling them "listen to experts", since for the past year and a half experts have been wrong almost as often as they have been right. I was educated to fear more those who are never wrong.

sneak 5y ago

I try to take heart in the fact that increased skepticism is, in general, a good thing for society.