5 ms·
Getting the wording slightly wrong? The US Surgeon General was quite clear: > "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing gene
by 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 agoIf 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).