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Edit: before you downvote this, read it? I'm not an anti-vax nutcase. They didn't trust the public with their actual thinking at any point during Covid. The

Edit: before you downvote this, read it? I'm not an anti-vax nutcase. They didn't trust the public with their actual thinking at any point during Covid. The guidance was initially "don't wear a mask, it will make it worse because you'll infect yourself with your hand" to "we'll just lock down for 3 weeks and then back to normal" to "we have to flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming hospitals" to the current policy of basically 0 covid tolerance. Why would they initially tell us to not wear masks? The generous answer is that they were afraid that a run on masks would make them unavailable to medical professionals who as far as we knew at that point needed them to survive. The uncharitable answer is that the people giving advice are imbeciles who hadn't even read the national plan to respond to respiratory pandemics. The most ridiculous part of our COVID response, at least where I am in the USA, is that we have a very detailed national plan that tells policy makers exactly how to respond to such an event. It was made following SARS (another coronavirus), and it is very good, and you can even read it online! It was completely ignored of course. (You can find an up to date version here, originally published in 2011: https://www.cms.gov/files/document/covid-pandemic-plan.pdf https://www.cms.gov/files/document/covid-pandemic-plan.pdf ) My daughter's school just went back to 100% at-home via zoom because 'too many children had positive covid tests'. How many had positive tests? What is the threshold or flow-chart for this decision defining what 'too many' means? Was this decision made with guidance or following guidelines given by public health experts operating under the umbrella of a national (or state, or county, or even school district) strategy? Hah! As if anyone would answer any of these questions! The answer is that 'too many' cases of covid means they close the schools 'for awhile'. The part that concerns me isn't just the lack of transparency, it is that behind the lack of transparency there is nothing there, it's just a non expert going with their gut or responding to pressure from hysterical parents. If we want to 'trust science' that starts with 'consulting scientists'!

rob_c 5y ago
Not knowing where you're from sounds like you're commenting on the UK policy at least (I'm sure it parallels others)... Speaking from an unfortunate position of experience a lot of this is driven (in the UK) by whitehall asking deliberately leading questions which are politically charged of civil servants and scientists. aka, there is a difference between, "what do we have to do to reduce deaths due to X this summer" and "what do we have to do to eradicate X this summer"... It's a shame that once these decisions had been made that only then the questions were asked. This is what comes from introducing data illiterate driven morons into the heart of politics, they don't understand the minutia of modelling, don't understand statsistics, and they abuse anything they find or read to a political end. </rant>
- nicoburns 5y ago
  > Not knowing where you're from sounds like you're commenting on the UK policy at least Parent comment does mention they're from the US.
  - rob_c 5y ago
    parent comment was edited several times
beebmam 5y ago
Surgical masks (and other cloth masks) make a small but significant difference in transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, we didn't understand whether that difference was lost in the increased need to interact with one's face while wearing a mask (and we now know that SARS-CoV-2 becomes inactivated quite quickly on surfaces, like our hands). N95s and higher rated masks/filters have always been very good for virtually eliminating transmission, but are also much harder to fit properly. Most Nurses/Doctors need to have them fit tested, which is not viable for the general population. Elastomeric half-mask respirators offer the protection of N95s (or better!) but are much easier to fit safely, and I'm actually not sure why more people don't use these or why these weren't recommended. In my humble opinion, I think the biggest failing of scientific institutions is more that our uncertainty wasn't conveyed to the public. I'd like to know how uncertain our scientific community is regarding some policies when they're discussed in the public.
- ltbarcly3 5y ago
  This is obviously false, they did know that it was better to wear a mask. Most of the population of the world was already wearing masks or being told to do so if possible. Doctors and other health professionals wear masks. National policy should not be made on the basis of 'some people kindof have this pet theory that you might infect yourself if you touch your ear'. I don't know of a single study that says you increase your chance of respiratory virus transmission from touching the sides and back of your head.
  - beebmam 5y ago
    It really wasn't false at the time; there's a bunch of uncertainty around it for this virus. For quite a long time, people really did believe SARS-CoV-2 could transmit through surfaces easily. We now know that to be incorrect.
    - ltbarcly3 5y ago
      People may or may not have believed a lot of things, but if you are asserting that they didn't know that respiratory viruses primarily spread via the respiratory system you must be joking? If you can show me even a single document dated from before Fall-2019 that expresses a concern that untrained users of n95 masks may INCREASE their chances of infection by coronaviruses, cold viruses, flu virus (basically anything other than Ebola or other hemorrhagic fevers) somehow, then I will happily agree that this was an area of debate and perhaps competent (but incorrect) advice to avoid mask usage. However, if no such evidence exists, you should agree with me that the evidence points to incompetent and/or intentionally misleading guidance.
btmiller 5y ago
Humans are very emotional creatures. A quote from Interstellar which I rewatched recently comes to mind. Their robot TARS says this when asked why his honesty parameter is set to 90% instead of 100%: “Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of interact with human beings”
- rytcio 5y ago
  Reminds me of the song from Ishtar https://youtu.be/g-mQcPsPAjc https://youtu.be/g-mQcPsPAjc
alkonaut 5y ago
> Why would they initially tell us to not wear masks? Because hard data was scarce and authorities are reluctant to impose anything as mere precaution. Or rather, whether authorities would do that kind of thing as a precaution before there is solid evidence varies from country to country (unsurprisingly).
- ltbarcly3 5y ago
  > Because hard data was scarce and authorities are reluctant to impose anything as mere precaution No, no. I didn't say why did they not impose mask mandates. They said "DO NOT WEAR a mask, because wearing masks is inherently dangerous".
  - alkonaut 5y ago
    This obviously varies between different countries but one way of expressing that was (correctly) that when the benefits and drawbacks are not known, it’s also not known whether it could be net negative. No authorities anywhere said literally (I hope) what you are quoting

rob_c 5y ago

Not knowing where you're from sounds like you're commenting on the UK policy at least (I'm sure it parallels others)... Speaking from an unfortunate position of experience a lot of this is driven (in the UK) by whitehall asking deliberately leading questions which are politically charged of civil servants and scientists. aka, there is a difference between, "what do we have to do to reduce deaths due to X this summer" and "what do we have to do to eradicate X this summer"... It's a shame that once these decisions had been made that only then the questions were asked. This is what comes from introducing data illiterate driven morons into the heart of politics, they don't understand the minutia of modelling, don't understand statsistics, and they abuse anything they find or read to a political end. </rant>

nicoburns 5y ago
> Not knowing where you're from sounds like you're commenting on the UK policy at least Parent comment does mention they're from the US.
- rob_c 5y ago
  parent comment was edited several times

beebmam 5y ago

Surgical masks (and other cloth masks) make a small but significant difference in transmission. At the beginning of the pandemic, we didn't understand whether that difference was lost in the increased need to interact with one's face while wearing a mask (and we now know that SARS-CoV-2 becomes inactivated quite quickly on surfaces, like our hands). N95s and higher rated masks/filters have always been very good for virtually eliminating transmission, but are also much harder to fit properly. Most Nurses/Doctors need to have them fit tested, which is not viable for the general population. Elastomeric half-mask respirators offer the protection of N95s (or better!) but are much easier to fit safely, and I'm actually not sure why more people don't use these or why these weren't recommended. In my humble opinion, I think the biggest failing of scientific institutions is more that our uncertainty wasn't conveyed to the public. I'd like to know how uncertain our scientific community is regarding some policies when they're discussed in the public.

ltbarcly3 5y ago
This is obviously false, they did know that it was better to wear a mask. Most of the population of the world was already wearing masks or being told to do so if possible. Doctors and other health professionals wear masks. National policy should not be made on the basis of 'some people kindof have this pet theory that you might infect yourself if you touch your ear'. I don't know of a single study that says you increase your chance of respiratory virus transmission from touching the sides and back of your head.
- beebmam 5y ago
  It really wasn't false at the time; there's a bunch of uncertainty around it for this virus. For quite a long time, people really did believe SARS-CoV-2 could transmit through surfaces easily. We now know that to be incorrect.
  - ltbarcly3 5y ago
    People may or may not have believed a lot of things, but if you are asserting that they didn't know that respiratory viruses primarily spread via the respiratory system you must be joking? If you can show me even a single document dated from before Fall-2019 that expresses a concern that untrained users of n95 masks may INCREASE their chances of infection by coronaviruses, cold viruses, flu virus (basically anything other than Ebola or other hemorrhagic fevers) somehow, then I will happily agree that this was an area of debate and perhaps competent (but incorrect) advice to avoid mask usage. However, if no such evidence exists, you should agree with me that the evidence points to incompetent and/or intentionally misleading guidance.

btmiller 5y ago

Humans are very emotional creatures. A quote from Interstellar which I rewatched recently comes to mind. Their robot TARS says this when asked why his honesty parameter is set to 90% instead of 100%: “Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic nor the safest form of interact with human beings”

rytcio 5y ago
Reminds me of the song from Ishtar https://youtu.be/g-mQcPsPAjc https://youtu.be/g-mQcPsPAjc

alkonaut 5y ago

> Why would they initially tell us to not wear masks? Because hard data was scarce and authorities are reluctant to impose anything as mere precaution. Or rather, whether authorities would do that kind of thing as a precaution before there is solid evidence varies from country to country (unsurprisingly).

ltbarcly3 5y ago
> Because hard data was scarce and authorities are reluctant to impose anything as mere precaution No, no. I didn't say why did they not impose mask mandates. They said "DO NOT WEAR a mask, because wearing masks is inherently dangerous".
- alkonaut 5y ago
  This obviously varies between different countries but one way of expressing that was (correctly) that when the benefits and drawbacks are not known, it’s also not known whether it could be net negative. No authorities anywhere said literally (I hope) what you are quoting