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> It's like when the CDC first said that masks are ineffective to try to keep people from hoarding them. The way I remember it was more like, the CDC said: -

> It's like when the CDC first said that masks are ineffective to try to keep people from hoarding them. The way I remember it was more like, the CDC said: - They don't know yet if surgical (and in general, non-N95) masks are effective against COVID-19 spread. They never denied this for N95. - Hospitals are running out of surgical (and N95...) masks, and given the above, people should stop hoarding them. That seemed... pretty reasonable to me? In fact here's a link [1] where Fauci literally said: > When we get in a situation when we have enough masks, there will be serious consideration about more broadening this recommendation of using masks. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpjmKc2D0Mg&t=1m4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpjmKc2D0Mg&t=1m4s

ErikVandeWater 5y ago
We can see from this and other examples how the CDC lying to the public has backfired immensely. Not that the CDC is incentivized much to care. The bigger the crisis the bigger the funding.
- dataflow 5y ago
  > We can see from this and other examples how the CDC lying to the public has backfired immensely. I don't see a lie in this example.
  - john_minsk 5y ago
    “They are effective, but doctors need them more, so please don’t hoard” is different from “they are not effective”, hence is a lie. This should be a lesson to all those corporate-like structures in public sector where they use common enterprise tactics of middle management to say things in the non-specific way so that later down the road they can cover their asses. They had to be very specific, don’t lie, simply say about things they are not sure about “we don’t know” (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin etc.) and do tests, never say “vaccines are safe”, but say they are 100000 times less dangerous than disease etc. And then we could trust every word they just say as we know that they are very aware of what they are saying and they haven’t lied to us in a lot of situations before. They should govern, but instead they play politics… wtf really.
    - dataflow 5y ago
      > “They are effective, but doctors need them more, so please don’t hoard” is different from “they are not effective”, hence is a lie. No, that doesn't follow. Do you have any evidence the CDC knew this was false, and was consistently messaging to the contrary (aka not a pointer to things like 280-char tweets where everyone understands bandwidth would be limited)? A lie requires intent to deceive, i.e. dishonesty. Not something where they're forced to summarize and strip out details, but provide the details elsewhere when they have the chance. And certainly not a genuine, honest mistake. I have yet to see evidence the CDC knew that masks are effective and yet lied about it. And nobody here has been willing to provide any evidence of that either. Just because they might have been inaccurate in their assessment of the situation, doesn't mean they were lying. Just like how, just because you say "we ran out of ketchup, can you buy some from the store?" and then discover you had some in the back of your fridge, that doesn't mean you're lying. And btw, I don't even know what example you're talking about. If you're talking about my example like I said, at 1:32, the reporter clearly communicates "surgical masks are not that effective". And it wasn't the CDC talking either. You should really link whatever you're talking about because it doesn't seem to be this example.
ceejayoz 5y ago
At the time, the US Surgeon General tweeted: > "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!" There was absolutely quite a bit of false messaging on the point from authority figures.
- haunter 5y ago
  Here is the tweet https://web.archive.org/web/20200229123317/https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/1233725785283932160 https://web.archive.org/web/20200229123317/https://twitter.c...
- dataflow 5y ago
  (a) Do you call any case where someone turns out to be wrong "false messaging"? Their prior knowledge led them to believe (wrongly, but it seems to me, quite honestly) that non-N95 masks would not be effective, and they didn't have evidence to the contrary, and they very openly explained that their fear is healthcare providers not having masks, which was 100% a sincere worry any official worth their salt would have. (b) A tweet only has so much room to explain things. There's a reason websites in general, official CDC recommendations in particular, and the news media exist. If the only source of information you get your news from for several weeks amidst a pandemic is Twitter, and the tweet turns out to be lacking some info, the problem isn't the source you're reading. (c) Even if you establish there was "false messaging from the surgeon general on Twitter" (which you haven't due to the reasons above), it's quite a goalpost move from "the CDC was being deceptive/manipulative". Especially when the the surgeon general was picked by the president and specifically not the NIH authority figure that the nation was looking up to 24/7.
  - abstractbarista 5y ago
    They stated something as fact to influence our behavior, when they did not actually have the requisite knowledge to make such a statement at that point in time. They should have instead said "We don't know whether they're effective yet, so don't hoard them, because doing so could cause X." There's nothing wrong with admitting you don't know something yet. Instead, they make commands without supporting evidence. That implies total disregard for the peoples' intelligence. Upon realizing this, trust is lost and dissenting actions increase.
jimbob45 5y ago
There’s an idea with masks where preventing any infection or virus that you could contract while stricken with COVID will shorten the period of time you have COVID and thus shorten the window in which you are contagious. That was always true and will always be true. Even if COVID flows right through masks, there will still always be a plausible reason to wear them.
- dataflow 5y ago
  Sure, and if we had an overflowing supply of masks I'm sure they wouldn't have told people to stop buying them.
choward 5y ago
You cherry picked a video from April after he changed his mind. Here's what he said in March. "There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI
- dataflow 5y ago
  First, no, I didn't cherry-pick anything, it was literally the first video I saw when I searched on YouTube. I certainly didn't even recall your video. Second, if you're going to accuse cherry-picking, look at the very crucial quotes you omitted from your own clip: - Right before your quote he had added very critical qualifiers that you skipped: He specifically said, "Right now, in the United States, there's no reason to be walking around with a mask." Mind you, this was on March 8, pre-lockdown. He explicitly made it clear this guidance could change as the situation evolves (or, as you wrote, "change his mind" should he get more data or see circumstances change... how horrifying!), and he specifically said in the United States, likely because the epidemic was much less severe than it became in the following weeks (it wasn't even declared a pandemic yet!), so they thought it could be better handled without telling everyone to wear masks. He clearly genuinely believed at the time that the protection they would be likely to provide would be small compared to the benefits of saving them for hospitals. - Also note that he continued to provide context: "When you think masks, you should think of healthcare providers needing them, and people who are ill." Again, he's explaining his concerns. You can't ignore that. - Also note that he even specifically explained: "When you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of people wearing masks, that's fine, that's fine. I'm not against it. But that's when it can lead to a shortage of masks for people who need it." i.e.: If he wasn't worried about a shortage, he wouldn't be telling people not to wear masks. You can't honestly hear all that and accuse him (or me...) of dishonesty with that clip.
  - choward 5y ago

ErikVandeWater 5y ago

We can see from this and other examples how the CDC lying to the public has backfired immensely. Not that the CDC is incentivized much to care. The bigger the crisis the bigger the funding.

dataflow 5y ago
> We can see from this and other examples how the CDC lying to the public has backfired immensely. I don't see a lie in this example.
- john_minsk 5y ago
  “They are effective, but doctors need them more, so please don’t hoard” is different from “they are not effective”, hence is a lie. This should be a lesson to all those corporate-like structures in public sector where they use common enterprise tactics of middle management to say things in the non-specific way so that later down the road they can cover their asses. They had to be very specific, don’t lie, simply say about things they are not sure about “we don’t know” (hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin etc.) and do tests, never say “vaccines are safe”, but say they are 100000 times less dangerous than disease etc. And then we could trust every word they just say as we know that they are very aware of what they are saying and they haven’t lied to us in a lot of situations before. They should govern, but instead they play politics… wtf really.
  - dataflow 5y ago
    > “They are effective, but doctors need them more, so please don’t hoard” is different from “they are not effective”, hence is a lie. No, that doesn't follow. Do you have any evidence the CDC knew this was false, and was consistently messaging to the contrary (aka not a pointer to things like 280-char tweets where everyone understands bandwidth would be limited)? A lie requires intent to deceive, i.e. dishonesty. Not something where they're forced to summarize and strip out details, but provide the details elsewhere when they have the chance. And certainly not a genuine, honest mistake. I have yet to see evidence the CDC knew that masks are effective and yet lied about it. And nobody here has been willing to provide any evidence of that either. Just because they might have been inaccurate in their assessment of the situation, doesn't mean they were lying. Just like how, just because you say "we ran out of ketchup, can you buy some from the store?" and then discover you had some in the back of your fridge, that doesn't mean you're lying. And btw, I don't even know what example you're talking about. If you're talking about my example like I said, at 1:32, the reporter clearly communicates "surgical masks are not that effective". And it wasn't the CDC talking either. You should really link whatever you're talking about because it doesn't seem to be this example.

ceejayoz 5y ago

At the time, the US Surgeon General tweeted: > "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!" There was absolutely quite a bit of false messaging on the point from authority figures.

haunter 5y ago
Here is the tweet https://web.archive.org/web/20200229123317/https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/1233725785283932160 https://web.archive.org/web/20200229123317/https://twitter.c...
dataflow 5y ago
(a) Do you call any case where someone turns out to be wrong "false messaging"? Their prior knowledge led them to believe (wrongly, but it seems to me, quite honestly) that non-N95 masks would not be effective, and they didn't have evidence to the contrary, and they very openly explained that their fear is healthcare providers not having masks, which was 100% a sincere worry any official worth their salt would have. (b) A tweet only has so much room to explain things. There's a reason websites in general, official CDC recommendations in particular, and the news media exist. If the only source of information you get your news from for several weeks amidst a pandemic is Twitter, and the tweet turns out to be lacking some info, the problem isn't the source you're reading. (c) Even if you establish there was "false messaging from the surgeon general on Twitter" (which you haven't due to the reasons above), it's quite a goalpost move from "the CDC was being deceptive/manipulative". Especially when the the surgeon general was picked by the president and specifically not the NIH authority figure that the nation was looking up to 24/7.
- abstractbarista 5y ago
  They stated something as fact to influence our behavior, when they did not actually have the requisite knowledge to make such a statement at that point in time. They should have instead said "We don't know whether they're effective yet, so don't hoard them, because doing so could cause X." There's nothing wrong with admitting you don't know something yet. Instead, they make commands without supporting evidence. That implies total disregard for the peoples' intelligence. Upon realizing this, trust is lost and dissenting actions increase.

jimbob45 5y ago

There’s an idea with masks where preventing any infection or virus that you could contract while stricken with COVID will shorten the period of time you have COVID and thus shorten the window in which you are contagious. That was always true and will always be true. Even if COVID flows right through masks, there will still always be a plausible reason to wear them.

dataflow 5y ago
Sure, and if we had an overflowing supply of masks I'm sure they wouldn't have told people to stop buying them.

choward 5y ago

You cherry picked a video from April after he changed his mind. Here's what he said in March. "There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRa6t_e7dgI

dataflow 5y ago
First, no, I didn't cherry-pick anything, it was literally the first video I saw when I searched on YouTube. I certainly didn't even recall your video. Second, if you're going to accuse cherry-picking, look at the very crucial quotes you omitted from your own clip: - Right before your quote he had added very critical qualifiers that you skipped: He specifically said, "Right now, in the United States, there's no reason to be walking around with a mask." Mind you, this was on March 8, pre-lockdown. He explicitly made it clear this guidance could change as the situation evolves (or, as you wrote, "change his mind" should he get more data or see circumstances change... how horrifying!), and he specifically said in the United States, likely because the epidemic was much less severe than it became in the following weeks (it wasn't even declared a pandemic yet!), so they thought it could be better handled without telling everyone to wear masks. He clearly genuinely believed at the time that the protection they would be likely to provide would be small compared to the benefits of saving them for hospitals. - Also note that he continued to provide context: "When you think masks, you should think of healthcare providers needing them, and people who are ill." Again, he's explaining his concerns. You can't ignore that. - Also note that he even specifically explained: "When you look at the films of foreign countries and you see 85% of people wearing masks, that's fine, that's fine. I'm not against it. But that's when it can lead to a shortage of masks for people who need it." i.e.: If he wasn't worried about a shortage, he wouldn't be telling people not to wear masks. You can't honestly hear all that and accuse him (or me...) of dishonesty with that clip.
- choward 5y ago