4 ms·

There was no shortage of t-shirts and even if wrapping a t-shirt around your head wasn't effective, at least it would have been logically consistent with the ev

There was no shortage of t-shirts and even if wrapping a t-shirt around your head wasn't effective, at least it would have been logically consistent with the eventual messaging of "wear a better mask now that you can get them." The experts decided to burn their own reputations for a short term benefit, and are paying the price now with vaccine hesitancy and growing ire towards experts.

gowld 5y ago
How can you blame "the experts" for getting the wording slightly wrong and not a billions-dollar decades-long intentionally deceitful campaign run by the likes of Fox News? And a President who intentionally mishandled the pandemic in order to hurt Democratic leaning states?
- Eelongate 5y ago
  Getting the wording slightly wrong? The US Surgeon General was quite clear: > "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus" I don't think typing "NOT" is a slight error in wording. The message was deliberate, and it wasn't just the US Surgeon General either. All the center/center-left media, which is what I read, was echoing the same message. Fox News and Trump telling lies is par for the course, but I don't consider that a license for everybody else to start telling lies as well.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    If there's an epidemic starting, then only a small number of people have the disease. Everyone wearing a mask would help, but if you have a limited number of masks, you want to focus them on people likely to have/catch the disease. The masks worn by people without the disease would be ineffective or even counterproductive if health care professionals were missing PPE as a result.
    - ralmeida 5y ago
      > if health care professionals were missing PPE as a result True, but "don't buy masks NOW because the health workers need them" is totally different than "don't buy masks because they are not effective for the general public and can actually be worse" - being either a terribly wrong idea (like the article defends) or outright lying to the public (if the message was told not because it was believed to be true, but as a roundabout way of being extra emphatic to avoid the public hoarding masks and causing PPE shortages for health workers).

gowld 5y ago

How can you blame "the experts" for getting the wording slightly wrong and not a billions-dollar decades-long intentionally deceitful campaign run by the likes of Fox News? And a President who intentionally mishandled the pandemic in order to hurt Democratic leaning states?

Eelongate 5y ago
Getting the wording slightly wrong? The US Surgeon General was quite clear: > "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus" I don't think typing "NOT" is a slight error in wording. The message was deliberate, and it wasn't just the US Surgeon General either. All the center/center-left media, which is what I read, was echoing the same message. Fox News and Trump telling lies is par for the course, but I don't consider that a license for everybody else to start telling lies as well.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  If there's an epidemic starting, then only a small number of people have the disease. Everyone wearing a mask would help, but if you have a limited number of masks, you want to focus them on people likely to have/catch the disease. The masks worn by people without the disease would be ineffective or even counterproductive if health care professionals were missing PPE as a result.
  - ralmeida 5y ago
    > if health care professionals were missing PPE as a result True, but "don't buy masks NOW because the health workers need them" is totally different than "don't buy masks because they are not effective for the general public and can actually be worse" - being either a terribly wrong idea (like the article defends) or outright lying to the public (if the message was told not because it was believed to be true, but as a roundabout way of being extra emphatic to avoid the public hoarding masks and causing PPE shortages for health workers).