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It isn't neutral. These two statements are not equivalent. The CDC says x should be done -> not doing so is contrary to CDC recommendations. The CDC says you

It isn't neutral. These two statements are not equivalent. The CDC says x should be done -> not doing so is contrary to CDC recommendations. The CDC says you don't have to do x anymore -> still doing x is not contrary to CDC recommendations. The case that was equivalent didn't occur: The CDC says you should stop doing x -> not doing so is contrary to CDC recommendations.

sjg007 5y ago
The CDC recommends masks. This is the scientific consensus. If you google back in the past you see consistency in their policies with respect to all communicable respiratory diseases. Measles, H1N1 etc.. It's all there in Google. For the current pandemic, they did not initially recommend masking because they could not justify it for the general population over the medical community. They wanted to avoid a tragedy of the commons of PPE. The covid19 prevalence was low so the appropriate path was to protect those most likely to be exposed rather than enact a universal blanket. Any blanket has holes regardless of how fine the weave is and the doctors/nurses/hospitals are the choke points. And they are ultimately the carers who save lives. So this nonsense of the CDC said this and that is just that: nonsense.
- LurkingPenguin 5y ago
  > For the current pandemic, they did not initially recommend masking because they could not justify it for the general population over the medical community. They wanted to avoid a tragedy of the commons of PPE. The covid19 prevalence was low... I posted links in this thread which discuss how the CDC was negligent in studying the possibility of asymptomatic spread early in the pandemic, and knowingly released test kits that were faulty. What this means is that the CDC didn't actually know what the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 was in the US in the early days of the pandemic. It was flying totally blind and as we eventually learned, the virus was silently spreading and establishing a foothold throughout parts of the country while the CDC was assuring Americans it had everything under control and the threat was low. My family and friends in the US were able to stock up on medical masks and N95s in January before they were pulled from the shelves because I was living in Taiwan, where it was abundantly clear in January that there was a very serious respiratory pathogen on the loose.
  - jasonlotito 5y ago
    I wonder how much of that was impacted by the current administration at the time.
    - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
      From the articles I posted: > Yet Reuters has found new evidence that the CDC’s response to the pandemic also was marred by actions - or inaction - by the agency’s career scientists and frontline staff. > In addition to learning of the early warning, reviewers determined the Respiratory Viruses Diagnostic Laboratory, run by a highly regarded scientist named Stephen Lindstrom, was beset with problems, including "process failures, a lack of appropriate recognized laboratory quality standards, and organizational problems related to the support and management of a laboratory supporting an outbreak response," the review said. I know it's in vogue in America to blame everything on the current administration (this happens on both/all sides of the aisle) but in reality, institutional rot is responsible for a lot more of the shortcomings in institutional failures. There is an obvious decline that has been taking place in many agencies for decades, across both Democratic and Republican administrations.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > For the current pandemic, they did not initially recommend masking because they could not justify it for the general population over the medical community. They wanted to avoid a tragedy of the commons of PPE. Then here's what they should have said: "Masks work, but health care workers need to be prioritized. So we have asked the President to exercise the government's eminent domain power to ensure that adequate supplies of PPE are available to health care workers. That may impact availability of masks for the general public in the near term, until supply chains can respond to the large increase in demand." What they actually said was: "Masks don't work so don't bother trying to buy them."
  - jasonlotito 5y ago
    Back in January 2020 they were saying n95 masks are primarily for health care workers. They didn't say they don't work. There are news articles from then that literally talk about the statements you are claiming they should have said. "Most people don’t know how to use face masks correctly, and a rush to buy masks could prevent the people who need them most — health care providers — from getting them." The Surgeon General under Trump did make a statment: " U.S. surgeon general recently urged the public to “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!,” wrote Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Twitter" So maybe you are confusing that statement? Regardless, the messaging was obviously not clear, but I can't find anything confirming the CDC said "masks don't work so don't bother trying to buy them."
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      Dr. Fauci went on TV to tell people that there is no reason to wear a mask. He’s strictly NIAID but considering NIAID is in the CDC and that’s under HHS that leaves us with the CDC silent between two guys telling us not to wear masks.
    - pdonis 5y ago
      > There are news articles from then that literally talk about the statements you are claiming they should have said. "Most people don't know how to use face masks correctly" is not what I claimed they should have said. That's basically saying "masks don't work unless you're a health care worker who has been trained to wear them properly". Which is wrong since plenty of people who aren't health care workers do know how to wear masks properly. It's not rocket science; you just have to make sure there's a proper seal. Most N95 mask packages give explicit directions about how to do that. > "a rush to buy masks could prevent the people who need them most — health care providers — from getting them." Which, again, is not what I claimed they should have said. The proper response to this valid concern, as I said, would have been to use the government's eminent domain power to ensure that PPE was prioritized to health care workers (or, in the case of the CDC, NIH, etc. who don't have that authority themselves, to recommend to the President to do that). Not to prevaricate about people not knowing how to wear masks properly.

sjg007 5y ago

The CDC recommends masks. This is the scientific consensus. If you google back in the past you see consistency in their policies with respect to all communicable respiratory diseases. Measles, H1N1 etc.. It's all there in Google. For the current pandemic, they did not initially recommend masking because they could not justify it for the general population over the medical community. They wanted to avoid a tragedy of the commons of PPE. The covid19 prevalence was low so the appropriate path was to protect those most likely to be exposed rather than enact a universal blanket. Any blanket has holes regardless of how fine the weave is and the doctors/nurses/hospitals are the choke points. And they are ultimately the carers who save lives. So this nonsense of the CDC said this and that is just that: nonsense.

LurkingPenguin 5y ago
> For the current pandemic, they did not initially recommend masking because they could not justify it for the general population over the medical community. They wanted to avoid a tragedy of the commons of PPE. The covid19 prevalence was low... I posted links in this thread which discuss how the CDC was negligent in studying the possibility of asymptomatic spread early in the pandemic, and knowingly released test kits that were faulty. What this means is that the CDC didn't actually know what the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 was in the US in the early days of the pandemic. It was flying totally blind and as we eventually learned, the virus was silently spreading and establishing a foothold throughout parts of the country while the CDC was assuring Americans it had everything under control and the threat was low. My family and friends in the US were able to stock up on medical masks and N95s in January before they were pulled from the shelves because I was living in Taiwan, where it was abundantly clear in January that there was a very serious respiratory pathogen on the loose.
- jasonlotito 5y ago
  I wonder how much of that was impacted by the current administration at the time.
  - LurkingPenguin 5y ago
    From the articles I posted: > Yet Reuters has found new evidence that the CDC’s response to the pandemic also was marred by actions - or inaction - by the agency’s career scientists and frontline staff. > In addition to learning of the early warning, reviewers determined the Respiratory Viruses Diagnostic Laboratory, run by a highly regarded scientist named Stephen Lindstrom, was beset with problems, including "process failures, a lack of appropriate recognized laboratory quality standards, and organizational problems related to the support and management of a laboratory supporting an outbreak response," the review said. I know it's in vogue in America to blame everything on the current administration (this happens on both/all sides of the aisle) but in reality, institutional rot is responsible for a lot more of the shortcomings in institutional failures. There is an obvious decline that has been taking place in many agencies for decades, across both Democratic and Republican administrations.
pdonis 5y ago
> For the current pandemic, they did not initially recommend masking because they could not justify it for the general population over the medical community. They wanted to avoid a tragedy of the commons of PPE. Then here's what they should have said: "Masks work, but health care workers need to be prioritized. So we have asked the President to exercise the government's eminent domain power to ensure that adequate supplies of PPE are available to health care workers. That may impact availability of masks for the general public in the near term, until supply chains can respond to the large increase in demand." What they actually said was: "Masks don't work so don't bother trying to buy them."
- jasonlotito 5y ago
  Back in January 2020 they were saying n95 masks are primarily for health care workers. They didn't say they don't work. There are news articles from then that literally talk about the statements you are claiming they should have said. "Most people don’t know how to use face masks correctly, and a rush to buy masks could prevent the people who need them most — health care providers — from getting them." The Surgeon General under Trump did make a statment: " U.S. surgeon general recently urged the public to “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!,” wrote Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Twitter" So maybe you are confusing that statement? Regardless, the messaging was obviously not clear, but I can't find anything confirming the CDC said "masks don't work so don't bother trying to buy them."
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Dr. Fauci went on TV to tell people that there is no reason to wear a mask. He’s strictly NIAID but considering NIAID is in the CDC and that’s under HHS that leaves us with the CDC silent between two guys telling us not to wear masks.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > There are news articles from then that literally talk about the statements you are claiming they should have said. "Most people don't know how to use face masks correctly" is not what I claimed they should have said. That's basically saying "masks don't work unless you're a health care worker who has been trained to wear them properly". Which is wrong since plenty of people who aren't health care workers do know how to wear masks properly. It's not rocket science; you just have to make sure there's a proper seal. Most N95 mask packages give explicit directions about how to do that. > "a rush to buy masks could prevent the people who need them most — health care providers — from getting them." Which, again, is not what I claimed they should have said. The proper response to this valid concern, as I said, would have been to use the government's eminent domain power to ensure that PPE was prioritized to health care workers (or, in the case of the CDC, NIH, etc. who don't have that authority themselves, to recommend to the President to do that). Not to prevaricate about people not knowing how to wear masks properly.