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U.S. public health agencies aren't ‘following the science,’ officials say

239 points by themgt 4y ago

teej 4y ago
This is practically misinformation.
- epgui 4y ago
alvah 4y ago
Anyone who unironically prefixes "science" with "the" doesn't understand science. The scientific method is pretty much the opposite of ten commandments inscribed in stone.
- onionisafruit 4y ago
  The phrase “the science” only appears once in the article and in that instance it’s in scare quotes.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
theandrewbailey 4y ago
> One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.”
- throwawaylinux 4y ago
  - swayvil 4y ago
- trentnix 4y ago
- mc32 4y ago
  The worst part of the pandemic beside policies that would swing back and forth (which is kind of understandable if you're learning as you go) was the inability to have discussions about the pros and cons of shutdowns and other pandemic related policies. Social media and mainstream media saw it fit to censor dissenting voices --not those of quacks, we can mostly all agree on minimizing the voices of quacks but shutting down medical professionals and medical academics and so on is very concerning. The only people they allowed to be wrong about the pandemic were govt officials. They could get it wrong and right it as many times as necessary.
  - 14 4y ago
    You wouldn’t believe how bad it was on reddit. Places like r/Canada had to ban any dissenting voices because they were unable to have a discussion that didn’t go with their beliefs. If I had to wager my left nut I would wager that sub is controlled by the government to try and sway a narrative. If you have a strong argument you have no issues about debate.
    - stevenwoo 4y ago
      this thread is a year old but two of the mods of r/canada are white supremacists https://old.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/m4zywr/rcanada_mods/gqxs16f/ https://old.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/m4zywr/rcan...
  - s3r3nity 4y ago
    > Social media and mainstream media saw it fit to censor dissenting voices --not those of quacks, we can mostly all agree on minimizing the voices of quacks but shutting down medical professionals and medical academics and so on is very concerning. No I don't agree with censoring _any_ voices - precisely because of this issue. The decentralized market of ideas will address the "quacks" in the room, as I don't trust any central authority to do that for me. If a centralized authority wields power in a way that creates negative consequences, you don't give them _more_ power, or just hope that they'll do the right thing.
    - 4y ago
- gpt5 4y ago
  At my toddler preschool they still have a mask mandate, even though research shows that it hurts the kids speech development and ability to read emotions. I now need to send my child to speech therapy lessons. There was never a discussion of the pros and cons, and it's simply a decision of the preschool management, as the county and state have dropped it a while ago. It's just an example of how the children are rarely a considiration.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    > There was never a discussion of the pros and cons, and it's simply a decision of the preschool management, as the county and state have dropped it a while ago. It's just an example of how the children are rarely a considiration. There was SO MUCH discussion of the pros and cons. I promise. You may not have seen it, but it was in so many places.
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  We closed schools to keep the bars open. I'll never quite understand it.
- chiefalchemist 4y ago
calebm 4y ago
> In this, the leaders of these American health agencies made the U.S. an international outlier in how it treats children. Sweden never offered vaccination to children under 12. Finland limits Covid vaccines to children under 12 who are at high risk. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has appropriately stated that “some children may benefit” but “previous infection offers as good of protection as the vaccine against reinfection.” Denmark announced on June 22 that its recommendation to vaccinate any children under age 16 was a mistake.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
  Children never needed it. Their chances of dying to covid are basically zero. And since it seems to do absolutely nothing to prevent the spread, there's no reason whatsoever to give it them other than it'd very profitable to our industrial drug dealers to do so.
  - wincy 4y ago
    My family is sick with covid right now. My wife and I are overweight and so the doctor prescribed us Paxlovid. Day one was terrible, the sickest I've been in my adult life. I literally had pneumonia a month ago and it wasn't as bad. Things have been substantially better for my wife and I since we started Paxlovid. Our seven year old is feeling fine, and our three year old who is disabled and tends to get sick fairly often has a fever and slept for a day straight and had the world's worst diarrhea. Her doctor (who almost exclusively sees disabled kids like her) seems completely unconcerned about it and said to just treat it like any other illness, push fluids and give her Tylenol and Ibuprofen alternately to keep her fever down.
    - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
      Anecdotal.
- tlogan 4y ago
  If science changes as soon as one crosses the border means it is not science. CDC might be wrong here but they will never admit. Never.
Someone1234 4y ago
I've never heard of "commonsense.news" before, but it is by Bari Weiss[0] who is trying to create an "anti-cancel culture," "anti-woke" University called the University of Austin[1]. Her Wikipedia on her history kind of speaks for itself, in particular the "2017–2020" section[0]. Why does this matter? Because most of the articles claims are based on "spoke to us" quotes from anonymous staffers which cannot be independently verified. So it falls to the reputation of those publishing and their journalistic integrity/process, and at that point I leave it to you to make up your own mind. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_The_New_York_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin
- dang 4y ago
  On HN we try to go by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The author names here are probably more important than whoever owns the site. Their credentials are on the line if the sources they claim to be quoting are made up. That doesn't prove anything, of course, but one's always guessing with these things, and readers need to make up their own minds. I understand the argument you're making, and it's not an obvious call, but I think it comes with more downside than upside, at least for HN. It's a trope of tribal internet argument (I mean in general—not talking about you here) to follow a "DAG of shame" in which you hop from any node to the most shameful associated thing, with the intention of discrediting the node from which you started. The problem is that each of those hops loses a lot of information, and one ends up in places that aren't particularly relevant, like whatever that university project is. What's bad about this for HN is that it makes threads more generic, predictable, and repetitive. It also polarizes discussion along the most intense axis. All of this makes discussion less interesting and more inflammatory. So while it's not an obvious call (more like 60-40 than 80-20) I think we're better off as a community to resist the habit of replacing topic X with the biggest or most shameful other-topic-Y that the dots connect to. It's not that there's no value in it, but it's the wrong move, given what we're trying to optimize for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).
kindatrue 4y ago
One of the authors tweeted this: "The rest of the world has accepted the endemic nature of Covid and moved on, but the U.S. is an int'l outlier, still pushing mass testing & chasing down every case." [0] I'm not sure what inverse universe he lives in given that we barely do any official testing, and contact tracing never even got off the ground. His retweets are also all the other well known covid-minimizers - including the infamous Jay Bhattacharya. [0] https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1546533258187390977 https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1546533258187390977
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Yeah, it's also a fabrication, unless "by the world" he means to exclude China.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    And Japan
    - amluto 4y ago
      And large parts of Europe, at least judging by the travel restrictions on their websites.
      - lovich 4y ago
        New Zealand as well for the list. I think we can be fairly certain the author is full of shit
      - veeti 4y ago
        Which parts are those exactly? Even the strictest countries like Germany no longer have any entry restrictions.
      - bonzini 4y ago
        Not sure about entry restrictions but there aren't any serious "behavioral" restrictions in Europe at the moment, despite most countries being through a BA.5 wave. Vaccine, testing and mask mandates have mostly been lifted. Here in Italy there's still a mask mandate on public transport, which is not uniformly enforced even, but that's it.
KerrAvon 4y ago
- majormajor 4y ago
aplummer 4y ago
This is a really biased article pushing a particular viewpoint. If it wasn't, you would also include the studies the demonstrate the number of lives saved by lockdowns that happened, the impact of different levels and types of lockdowns etc. A good summary with links is here: https://www.the-scientist.com/features/counting-the-lives-saved-by-lockdownsand-lost-to-slow-action-67689 https://www.the-scientist.com/features/counting-the-lives-sa...
- luxuryballs 4y ago
  Obligatory “Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have concluded that lockdowns have done little to reduce COVID deaths but have had “devastating effects” on economies and numerous social ills.” https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature...
  - akhmatova 4y ago
    Also obligatory is to point out the fact that the "study" was not peer reviewed; that it was written by economists, not public health experts (and has been severely criticized by several people who are recognized experts); that one of the authors (Hanke) is a senior director at a so-called think tank known for its is extreme pro-market bias; and that he published several basically crank tweets comparing lockdowns with 1930s German fascism.
    - luxuryballs 4y ago
      But did you read it?
      - akhmatova 4y ago
        I read enough of it to perform a basic smell test, yes. And in fact it's pretty easy to spot some of its more obvious shortcomings, as other reviewers have. Exactly as we would expect to find in the output of ideologically-driven academics working far outside of their own fields.
duxup 4y ago
I don’t really have a problem with making boosters available. Closing schools and masks have been gone in my area has been over for a while so the article seems to be mixing timelines in a way that is hard to follow.
abeppu 4y ago
I'm not saying there _aren't_ problems with decision-making or guidance from our public health agencies, but this article uses really different standards for judging positions taken by those agencies than it does for any dissenting position, in a way that ends up being nonsensical. Sure, let's critically evaluate the guidance put forward by our public health institutions, but quoting a statement from Norway's equivalent institution without the backing evidence doesn't make the US "wrong". If the evidence available on the efficacy of vaccines for kids is so ridiculously wide that it goes from -99% to +370% risk of infection, then surely Norway is _also_ drastically overstating its case when it says (about kids) "previous infection offers as good of protection as the vaccine against reinfection" esp since it _also_ seems like the protective effect of prior infection is both uncertain and changing. How about flatly declaring that guidance was "wrong" about school closures because minority and poor kids did markedly worse at math? Obviously these decisions are complex trade-offs, and one can't conclude that the choice was "wrong" simply by pointing out one of the costs. How about quoting a CDC scientist, who cannot possibly have strong evidence when making the prediction "CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children." Generations to come? Show us the data that lets this scientist predict the far future with such confidence. I get that it's deeply unnerving when these institutions make sweeping recommendations based on less firm data than we would normally demand. But not recommending anything, or not taking decisive action because of the limited data would _also_ have been irresponsible. When schools first closed, we didn't know a lot of things, but it would have been pretty reckless if agencies said "well this is putting a lot of people in the hospital and spreading fast, but we don't have the data to give definitive guidance yet, so you're on your own. Depending on the range of things your communities choose, maybe in a few months we'll have the evidence to say something."
- rallison 4y ago
  Agreed. I have a number of criticisms of the CDC, FDA and public institutions with respect to Covid, but this piece is highly biased and is misleading/wrong/cherry-picking with respect to the science. It seems the author has a general position of "interventions bad" and then works back from that to discredit anything related to interventions. For example, let's take just this single paragraph: > As of February, 75% of children in the U.S. already had natural immunity from prior infection. It could easily be over 90% of children today given how ubiquitous Omicron has been since then. The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons. Many countries have long credited natural immunity towards vaccine mandates. But not the U.S. First, there's this statement: "The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity." The linked study, reading through it, makes a different claim. The study showed that completion of a course of primary vaccination PLUS having had a prior Covid infection led to reduced severe outcomes more than just having had the primary course of vaccination alone. And even there, the CI (0.27 (0.09–0.84)) on the first scenario overlaps with the CI for vaccination alone. It would be notable if this showed that prior infection alone conferred better protection than vaccination alone, which is the author's claim. This study doesn't show that. It shows infection plus vaccination confers better immunity than vaccination alone. And, well, that's what basically any expert would have predicted as the most likely result. The second linked study (the NEJM one) gets closer, but largely only looks at infection rates (it does have some commentary on severe covid-19 rates, but this isn't adjusted for any confounders). It's most useful as a study on how immunity against infection wanes since the last immunity-conferring event, although it allows for some cross comparisons, such as comparing infection rates for natural immunity alone vs 2 doses alone vs 3 doses alone vs hybrid immunity. Possibly the biggest caveat is that the rate of testing for the different cohorts wasn't adjusted for: > Although differences in testing rates among cohorts and among subcohorts within specified cohorts were observed, their overall magnitude was relatively small. The rate of PCR testing was typically lower in the recovered, unvaccinated cohort than in the other cohorts, so the level of protection in this cohort as compared with that in the two-dose cohort may have been overestimated. So, it makes it harder to directly compare across cohorts. But, even assuming the cross comparison does hold up if you did correct for testing rates, there are a couple of things to call out in this study. First, three doses had significantly better numbers than two doses. However, the three-dose cohort was new at the time of this study, so this cohort only has results for the very first time slice, and that time slice doesn't exist for the natural immunity scenario, so we can't directly compare them. Second, this study also seems to show, with respect to immunity, that infection followed by vaccination is better than infection alone. Third, and most notably given this piece's commentary, is vaccination after natural immunity has waned. The study linked explicitly ends with this sentence in its discussion section: > We found that protection against the delta variant waned over time in both vaccinated and previously infected persons and that an additional vaccine dose restored protection. Let's look back at the wording in the original piece: > a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons It is telling that a study that ends by recommending a dose of vaccine to restore waning natural immunity is used to "question the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons" in this piece. Now, there's a reasonable debate around how previous infection should be counted w.r.t. to immune status. E.g. one can make a reasonable case that documented prior infection plus a single dose should count as "fully vaccinated." Or, that hitting a minimum threshold on an antibody test should count as documentation of immunity. Etc. But, that's not what the piece is arguing - it misrepresents both of the studies linked in this one paragraph, and then puts forward a conclusion that is unsupported by either study. If anything, both studies provide evidence that is quite supportive of getting vaccinated at some point after infection, yet you'd never know that if you just read the paragraph from this piece. Pieces like this one are frustrating because they have the veneer of legitimacy - written by someone in the field, linking studies, etc. It takes a lot of time to really dive in to understand whether or not the claims being made are supported. And even then, it often takes broader knowledge of the state of research in the field. It's easy to cherry pick research that supports a bias while simply leaving out competing research. Ultimately, this piece does not come off as a good faith review of the scientific evidence.
strangeloops85 4y ago
The arguments they make regarding children's vaccines don't make much sense to me. The end target for the pediatric vaccine trials was immunobridging, which has widely been used for other common childhood vaccines. Are they arguing against those as well? If so, that goes against a widely accepted and validated strategy to bridge adult vaccines down to pediatric age groups. Efficacy is a very complicated thing to measure as variants change. The symptomatic disease efficacy seen for the pediatric trials compare well vs. Omicron to what we've seen for adults, so it's all consistent and makes sense. Also, would they argue against the annual flu shots? We don't even run efficacy trials for those every year for different strain compositions. Also, a bit of perspective: we vaccinate children for many illnesses that would result in comparatively "small" numbers of pediatric deaths (lower than Covid even!). The reason is that even rare pediatric deaths, if preventable, are terrible given the life-years lost. And there HAVE been FAR too many pediatric Covid deaths by our modern standards for pediatric infectious diseases. If Covid only affected kids, the absolute numbers of deaths would be a very worrisome thing. Second, the possibility of long-term complications from even non-fatal illnesses. For pediatric COVID, MIS-C and potential super antigen links to the recent spread of pediatric hepatitis are more than sufficient to meet that bar. Finally - there was no safety signal seen in the 5-12 year old pediatric vaccines that have been given out to millions for ~year already, and no signal in the under 5 trials as well. The myocarditis risk primarily seems in teenage and older groups and linked to puberty/adolescent hormones. There may be contrarian voices in the FDA and CDC as there will be in any large organization. But to believe their voices over the consensus requires a heavy dose of motivated reasoning and not engaging with some basic facts about the goals of pediatric vaccines and the ways vaccine trials work. There's a reason every pediatrician parent I know was first in line to get their kids vaccinated.
- darkerside 4y ago
  > We don't even run efficacy trials for those every year for different strain compositions. Now I'm curious. What is the reasoning behind pediatric flu shots? Is it dangerous to the child?
  - Vecr 4y ago
LAC-Tech 4y ago
The one thing that struck me about Covid and the response was the western world rock bottom levels of trust in their governments (broadly defined). To me that's the real story - the demonstration of what amounts to a loss of legitimacy. (FWIW shutdowns did not bother me much, I got the two mandatory vaccines my jurisdiction required for air travel but refused the boosters, I generally wear masks in public because better safe than sorry.)
- cf141q5325 4y ago
  I think it boils down to a vicious cycle. Institutions are worried about a loss of credibility and are as a result very unwilling to acknowledge where they have been wrong, changed their minds or about any uncertainties that still exist. As a result people get the wrong impression and highly overestimate the competence of those institutions, and the confidence that their solutions warrant. Which makes those institutions even more afraid of loosing credibility. Which lead to some very comical parallel realities, like the WHO not aknowleding that COVID was airborne till 2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30939200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30939200 Or differently put, if you have absolutely unrealistic expectations and deferred any critical thinking to another party, you are putting said party in a very very difficult situation. And if they not just lack the backbone to tell you this, but start pretending to be that competent and certain to match your expectations, it can become very dangerous.
  - LAC-Tech 4y ago
    I'm not really saying COVID caused it. I'm saying in early 2020 institutional trust was already so slow that every newspaper and government department on earth could have said "the sky is blue" and a lot of people would have said "fuck you no it's not" by default.
bergenty 4y ago
danschumann 4y ago
Frustration is an emotion which seems to be ever increasing against a monolith that is the internet, where your voice doesn't feel like it matters, because you can't see the reaction of anyone.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Being on the internet is much like wearing a mask. It's VERY interesting how that progressed. It's like internet culture is infecting real life. People in real life becoming faceless and hive-mindish.
wonderwonder 4y ago
I have no idea if this is a valid article, the use of so many anonymous sources made me doubt every word. For all I know they are quoting someone on reddit claiming to work for the cdc. Every quote could have just been made up. It very much just appears to be opinion pretending to be news. With that said, I do agree with the proposal that if a kid has already had covid then why vaccinate them if the general consensus is that the vaccines only provide limited protection for a few months. All for vaccinating high risk people and I am vaccinated against covid with a booster from when they first came out but will not get another booster now that I have already had Covid. Omicron in general for most people is no worse than the flu, unpleasant but bearable. I fully understand the rush to vaccinate adults in the beginning when Delta was raging and we had limited understanding of the virus. Luckily Omicron is dominant now it seems to be much less damaging. This is not to downplay the very real consequences and deaths that do occur still from Covid. At this point in time my whole family has had it and I have accepted it as endemic and moved on.
- Server6 4y ago
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- tzs 4y ago
  > Omicron in general for most people is no worse than the flu, unpleasant but bearable. Flu in the US kills around 12k to 50k per year, with a particularly bad year every few decades getting up to maybe 80k. Omicron killed somewhere between 150k and 250k in the US in less than a year, and that was with free vaccines that were highly effective against death easily available to pretty much everyone who was not a young child. That doesn't sound like no worse than the flu to me.
  - jussij 4y ago
    Another big difference is how much pressure COVID can exert on the hospital system. The COVID hospitalization rates are magnitudes larger than the worst ever flu season.
jnash 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
unyttigfjelltol 4y ago
The problem is that the people making these decisions are terrified. Indeed, the people who ought to have made the most careful study of COVID, act most terrified of it. So, either the terror is the result of careful, inadequately disclosed study of the virus, or these agencies are unable to curb the desperation of voters and politicians to do something, anything to protect themselves and their loved ones from something that was seriously overhyped from the start.
- ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
  that is certainly an interesting imagined reality
mritun 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
jonstewart 4y ago
- wiskinator 4y ago
  Yeah - this article seems like an Op Ed.
motohagiography 4y ago
My impression working with a couple pubilic health agencies over the last half decade or so is that they are considered effectively "rogue" by the institutions they are accountable to, they operate as surveillance organizations with the same kind of secrecy culture as intelligence work, their management staff revolve in and out from international NGOs and univeristy admins, they treat privacy laws and policy with contempt, epidemiologists aren't doctors or biologists but "social scientists" with a particular critical bent, and they are very concerned about being held accountable for the policies they have influenced and executed because they know what they tried to do. Mostly, they are good people wanting to do good work, but imo, public health agencies have become a para-intelligence services with explicitly political aims. There is a network of academics who see health and health information as a policy lever, and they have been out in force leveraging it through public health agencies during the pandemic. I think they have discredited themselves over travel bans, vax passports, the objectively insane and poisonous rhetoric about the "hesitant," and arbitrary mandates with no accountability for those who enforced them. I don't think they can be trusted to be arbiters of science for people with a basic statistical reasoning skills and a belief in the existence of truth. The article articulates a more general and relevant sentiment, which is that the medical establishment has forfeited its public trust.
- gp 4y ago
  > epidemiologists aren't doctors or biologists but "social scientists" with a particular critical bent Many, if not most of the epidemiologists at the CDC hold M.Ds, and I can speak from personal experience that many have disdain for both political parties For example there is a lot of frustration at how the media is making a giant scare about Monkeypox, when it is isolated to certain communities and can be prevented with the smallpox vaccine which we already have stockpiled. > they operate as surveillance organizations with the same kind of secrecy culture as intelligence work This is blatantly false - the CDC publishes almost everything it does. Mostly boring statistics, reporting, investigating claims >public health agencies have become a para-intelligence services with explicitly political aims Really? >I think they have discredited themselves over travel bans, vax passports, the objectively insane and poisonous rhetoric about the "hesitant," You should visit the CDC's public museum in Atlanta - I think you will see all the good that vaccines and antibiotics have done for the world. Little else in medicine matters, comparatively, in terms of increased lifespans around the globe
wiskinator 4y ago
The sources this article cites regarding masking is a single pre-print that hasn't been peer reviewed yet, and it cites no sources at all for the claim that | "Then they ignored natural immunity. Wrong again. The vast majority of children have already had Covid, but this has made no difference in the blanket mandates for childhood vaccines. And now, by mandating vaccines and boosters for young healthy people, with no strong supporting data, these agencies are only further eroding public trust."
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  Do you have any sources that cloth masking (the types of masks worn by the vast majority of school children) works to reduce the spread?
  - rajup 4y ago
    They don’t because there isn’t. It’s just idiotic medical security theater. Unless the right masks are worn correctly 100% of the time, which lets be honest is not happening. I guess this is how superstitions start in a sense…
    - lemmsjid 4y ago
      https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/mandatory-masking-schools-reduced-covid-19-cases-during-delta-surge https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/mandatory-mask... “In the current study, most COVID-19 cases among students and staff were acquired from the community and approximately 10% of cases were acquired within school. The researchers found that for every 100 community-acquired cases, school districts with mandatory masking had approximately 7.3 cases of in-school infections, while optionally masked districts had 26.4 cases of in-school infections. In other words, school districts with optional masking had approximately 3.6 times the rate of in-school COVID-19 cases when compared to schools with mandatory masking. These data also show that mandatory masking was associated with a 72% reduction of in-school COVID-19 cases, compared to districts with optional masking.” From Pediatrics: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/6/e2022056687/185379/School-Masking-Policies-and-Secondary-SARS-CoV-2?autologincheck=redirected https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/6/e20220...
chiefalchemist 4y ago
> "That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children." > "Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science. The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health." So can we finally stop blaming the general public for the ongoing narrative that simply doesn't pass the smell test? Meanwhile, in Brazil, two doctors are trying to invent their own mRNA vax. And if they do they're promising to give it away...because The First World Healthcare Industrial Complex is more concerned about money over saving lives? And the media and political powers are silent? Too much of the past couple+ years has been a shit show. If it's not negligence then it's intentional. Neither is good.
conqueso 4y ago
bigbluedots 4y ago
Anything with 'common sense' in the title has become a red flag for me.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  It of course has numerous allusory and whistling characteristics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense It certainly has populist appeal, and is consciously used to evoke same.
puffoflogic 4y ago
- bmelton 4y ago
  On your advice, I did my level best to figure out who they worked with. Marty Makary works at Johns Hopkins, which is in Maryland, so I am guessing that the genocidal republican governor you're referring to in that case is Larry Hogan? Tracy Beth Høeg lists "consultant epidemiologist" for the Florida Department of Health, so I guess her closest governor is Ron Desantis? Are you intending to support that both of those governors are genocidal, and also republicans, or is it your intent to assert that all republicans who are governors are genocidal?
bubbajack9988 4y ago
- elil17 4y ago
  Yeah it doesn’t strike me as good journalism. Good journalists are typically very reluctant to publish unattributed quotes - they often look for a compelling reason to let someone speak anonymously and, if they find one, they explain that reason to their readers. Heck, even most bad journalists (e.g. from biased publications) at least attribute their quotes. This article is filled with quotes that have no source and therefore no credibility.
- camdenlock 4y ago
  Just because it doesn’t match your own political alignment doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
  - epgui 4y ago
- Jimmc414 4y ago
  No I didn't. The claims in the article are quite easily verified if you follow the links to the FDA site. What are your thoughts on the Pfizer and Moderna studies referenced in this article? I'd love to hear someone put effort into disputing those facts directly with other facts instead of engaging in ad hominem attacks on the publisher.
  - listless 4y ago
    I’m with you, but at the same time there is a giant red flag here. This hasn’t been covered by any major news source right or left. If there was any “there there” Fox News would run a special on this for a month straight. If you come with no creds and no attributable sources, why should we listen?
    - mapt 4y ago
imperio59 4y ago
Despite this tech companies are still requiring vaccines to come work in person, yet are wondering why no one wants to go back... Testing is way safer at this point than two doses against a strain that hasn't been dominant since late 2020. Lots of people are getting sick anyways even if they are vaccinated from other strains they aren't protected against, yet we discriminate against anyone who decided not to get the shot for religious reasons, or who can't get it for medical reasons. The world will look back on these years as collective insanity.
- epgui 4y ago
  > The world will look back on these years as collective insanity. I'm a biochemist, and I can assure you that scientists have been dismayed at the collective insanity since around March 2020, but we're definitely not dismayed at the same things as you are.
  - cf141q5325 4y ago
    I had a sign at my university entrance asking a vaccine status or current test as a "negative proof for covid19". As in your vaccine status proofs you dont have covid19. Any scientist who isnt deeply ashamed of this should really get the money for their degree back. Pretending that vaccines are in any way safer then or as safe as actual tests is simply horrific.
    - epgui 4y ago
      The word “proof” in that context just doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s an administrative context, not a scientific context. It’s not that hard to understand.
      - cf141q5325 4y ago
        Apparently i am a bit slow. Please do elaborate, i am really curious how your vaccine status can be used to verify that there is no indication for a covid infection.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
tlogan 4y ago
The main problem here is that Public health agencies are refusing to admit they are / were wrong in certain cases causing all political non sense. The second problem is that public healt official ended relying too much on mandates/enforcements and way too little on propaganda. For example, it is obvious now that vaccines do not prevent one from getting COVID and spreading COVID. Yes - vaccines definitely make having COVID like a mild fly: I got it just now and I was just a little sick for a couple of days. But they still claim that vaccines are preventing the spread. And then the approach is really bad: instead of running “viagra style” commercials on TV for vaccinations they decided to go with heavy handed mandates and requirements. I bet a couple of Steph Curry and Tom Brady commercials about vaccination will do wonder.
- seizethegdgap 4y ago
  My person, Donald Trump was getting booed for telling people at his rallys to get the vaccine, and you think having a superstar in the least-liked sports league amongst Republicans tell them to get shots would work better than a mandate? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-al... https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/donald-trump-booster-shot-boos/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/donald-trump-booster... https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/515665-new-poll-says-nba-ratings-have-plunged-because-of/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...
  - tlogan 4y ago
    Yes - it will help. At least it will not hurt CDC as much as mandates. It seems strange that CDC had policy “if somebody does not want vaccine we should force them instead convince them”. So strange that many people started being suspicious. Meaning we did not have any - zero - nada - none - commericals on TV for vaccinations. And many many crypto ones.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      > we did not have any - zero - nada - none - commericals on TV for vaccinations. That's sad your country didn't see the need to advertise. In the US we had tons of them.
throwaway892238 4y ago
For a second there I thought this was an actual news organization's article, but actually it's a blog. Kind of funny how neither cites sources for claims, tho. "Honest news for sane people" indeed.
- deleted 4y ago
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beloch 4y ago
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divbzero 4y ago
I think OP missed the fact that clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines in children measured neutralizing antibodies as the surrogate endpoint, similar to clinical trials for other vaccines [1]. So it is not surprising that the trials could achieve their primary endpoint while being inconclusive on preventing infection. On top of that, the benefit of vaccination can arise not just from preventing infection but also from reducing disease severity. [1]: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/development-resources/table-surrogate-endpoints-were-basis-drug-approval-or-licensure https://www.fda.gov/drugs/development-resources/table-surrog... "Table of Surrogate Endpoints That Were the Basis of Drug Approval or Licensure"
mmmpetrichor 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- etchalon 4y ago
  The HN community has shown a willingness to treat contrarian views with little to no skepticism, while being wildly insistent on perfection in mainstream sources.
  - epgui 4y ago
    Biochemist: can confirm.
- calebm 4y ago
  This is the news org started by Bari Weiss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss)
spoonjim 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- x86x87 4y ago
  The tragedy is that the pandemic was politicized and wearing or not wearing a mask was considered a political statement. Somewhere between 2010 and 2020 we have lost, as a society, the ability to think and reason based on logic and arguments. Most people today actively refuse to think (and hn is a bubble where people are really smart, educated and can actually hold a conversation but it's by no mean something that represents society at large). Anyway... back to politics. I knew that the CDC was full of BS when they came out with their "yeah, you don't need masks. they are only needed at the hospitals. leave the N95s for them". That being said, people refused to think and herd instinct kicked in. Should you wear a mask when you're in open air an there is noone around? Probably not. Should you wear one when in the middle of a crowd and people are literally sneezing left an right? Probably yes. After the initial handling by the CDC it was lie after half-truth after lie. Everyone wanted to make this a big deal (some to point at the bad handling of the leading political party, some to point at how well they were handling it). It's also extremely suspect how everyone switched the beat of the drums from "this is bad people. we are all going to die" to "pandemic over. social distancing over. we need to get back to living". It amazes me how in spite of having a vaccine today, we have a higher case rate today than we had for most of 2020 when we were told we are going to die. It's mindblowing. If this pandemic taught me anything is that I should never judge situations I've not been in before (whenever I watched an apocalypse/zombie/pandemic movie I used to think to myself: naah, people would not be that stupid. c'mon this is not realistic. turns out that we are really like herd animals and we really are that stupid).
  - epgui 4y ago
    > "yeah, you don't need masks. they are only needed at the hospitals. leave the N95s for them" The main message was not that masks were "only needed at the hospitals". You will remember that in the early days, there were serious supply issues with masks, and some hospitals, clinics and other healthcare providers had difficulty securing their own supplies. It was a question of priorities.
HWR_14 4y ago
Please consider the source. These authors are health care officials working for Rick Scott (Republican governor of Florida) and Glenn Youngkin (Republican governor of Virginia), both of whom have a hard political stance downplaying COVID.
- cf141q5325 4y ago
  Please also consider more then just who wrote it. Otherwise you end up in an echo chamber. Either they can make a valid point or they cant.
  - diob 4y ago
    The problem is, considering everything regardless of intention / author would mean wasting a lot of time and energy. In other words, someone is always going to jump up and down for your attention, willing to spew bs (sometimes mixed with fact), to slow you down and delay you. Being able to ignore it and focus on real issues is important.
    - cf141q5325 4y ago
      Sure but its unfortunately not optional if you dont want to end up in a echochamber. And being in one gets dangerous fast. If you filter something as bullshit, you should at least be able to say why it is bullshit, outside of just who wrote it.
      - diob 4y ago
        I disagree, but I get a portion of my view on it from "The Ass Is A Poor Receptacle For The Head: Why Democrats Suck At Communication, And How They Could Improve". (https://www.amazon.com/Ass-Poor-Receptacle-Head-Communication-ebook/dp/B0050O7VLW https://www.amazon.com/Ass-Poor-Receptacle-Head-Communicatio...) It goes into how Democrats get mired in reacting / reading / responding to everything, when detractors are acting in bad faith to consume their time / fill the airwaves and media. I recommend the book. It's great, short, and applicable far outside Democrats / politics.
cm2187 4y ago
- synicalx 4y ago
  Wow I'd completely forgotten about that! I remember seeing people during the early COVID days declaring publicly that they'd rather catch COVID than get the "Trump vaccine". People hate him so much he turned them into anti-vaxxers. To clarify here: I'm not pro Trump or Biden, I'm not even American. I'm just pointing out that politics makes people irrational.
  - vkazanov 4y ago
    Or maybe it is an example of how politics makes people say and do stupid things on principle?
    - synicalx 4y ago
      That is exactly my point
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    Until Biden got elected and then they no longer believed in my body my choice and wanted to fire everyone that wasn't vaxxed.
    - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
      - encryptluks2 4y ago
        No, because people get vaccinated to protect themselves.
        ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
foota 4y ago
TheGigaChad 4y ago
thenerdhead 4y ago
Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on, the least we should see is public health agencies take a position that we are smarter than we were when this whole thing started and start to think about a guiding policy for the long term. Many large companies the size of small countries have already adjusted their policies for the long term. Is that what we have to come to expect in the world that our working environments are ahead of our public health agencies?
Tokkemon 4y ago
Ah, commonsense."news", the Bari Weiss platform. Excuse me while I go elsewhere for reliable news.
TurkishPoptart 4y ago
Yes, like the people wearing double-masks outside walking their dogs still (Seattle). The CDC _never_ said wearing a mask outside is useful, and never said that people are catching it outdoors. So I don't know where the "idea" came that wearing a mask outside is "better" than not. It's just probably paranoia at this point (and looking like a "good person") and has nothing to do with infection control.

239 points by themgt 4y ago

teej 4y ago

This is practically misinformation.

epgui 4y ago

alvah 4y ago

Anyone who unironically prefixes "science" with "the" doesn't understand science. The scientific method is pretty much the opposite of ten commandments inscribed in stone.

onionisafruit 4y ago
The phrase “the science” only appears once in the article and in that instance it’s in scare quotes.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

theandrewbailey 4y ago

> One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.”

throwawaylinux 4y ago
- swayvil 4y ago
trentnix 4y ago
mc32 4y ago
The worst part of the pandemic beside policies that would swing back and forth (which is kind of understandable if you're learning as you go) was the inability to have discussions about the pros and cons of shutdowns and other pandemic related policies. Social media and mainstream media saw it fit to censor dissenting voices --not those of quacks, we can mostly all agree on minimizing the voices of quacks but shutting down medical professionals and medical academics and so on is very concerning. The only people they allowed to be wrong about the pandemic were govt officials. They could get it wrong and right it as many times as necessary.
- 14 4y ago
  You wouldn’t believe how bad it was on reddit. Places like r/Canada had to ban any dissenting voices because they were unable to have a discussion that didn’t go with their beliefs. If I had to wager my left nut I would wager that sub is controlled by the government to try and sway a narrative. If you have a strong argument you have no issues about debate.
  - stevenwoo 4y ago
    this thread is a year old but two of the mods of r/canada are white supremacists https://old.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/m4zywr/rcanada_mods/gqxs16f/ https://old.reddit.com/r/onguardforthee/comments/m4zywr/rcan...
- s3r3nity 4y ago
  > Social media and mainstream media saw it fit to censor dissenting voices --not those of quacks, we can mostly all agree on minimizing the voices of quacks but shutting down medical professionals and medical academics and so on is very concerning. No I don't agree with censoring _any_ voices - precisely because of this issue. The decentralized market of ideas will address the "quacks" in the room, as I don't trust any central authority to do that for me. If a centralized authority wields power in a way that creates negative consequences, you don't give them _more_ power, or just hope that they'll do the right thing.
  - 4y ago
gpt5 4y ago
At my toddler preschool they still have a mask mandate, even though research shows that it hurts the kids speech development and ability to read emotions. I now need to send my child to speech therapy lessons. There was never a discussion of the pros and cons, and it's simply a decision of the preschool management, as the county and state have dropped it a while ago. It's just an example of how the children are rarely a considiration.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  > There was never a discussion of the pros and cons, and it's simply a decision of the preschool management, as the county and state have dropped it a while ago. It's just an example of how the children are rarely a considiration. There was SO MUCH discussion of the pros and cons. I promise. You may not have seen it, but it was in so many places.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
ceejayoz 4y ago
We closed schools to keep the bars open. I'll never quite understand it.
chiefalchemist 4y ago

calebm 4y ago

> In this, the leaders of these American health agencies made the U.S. an international outlier in how it treats children. Sweden never offered vaccination to children under 12. Finland limits Covid vaccines to children under 12 who are at high risk. The Norwegian Institute of Public Health has appropriately stated that “some children may benefit” but “previous infection offers as good of protection as the vaccine against reinfection.” Denmark announced on June 22 that its recommendation to vaccinate any children under age 16 was a mistake.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
Children never needed it. Their chances of dying to covid are basically zero. And since it seems to do absolutely nothing to prevent the spread, there's no reason whatsoever to give it them other than it'd very profitable to our industrial drug dealers to do so.
- wincy 4y ago
  My family is sick with covid right now. My wife and I are overweight and so the doctor prescribed us Paxlovid. Day one was terrible, the sickest I've been in my adult life. I literally had pneumonia a month ago and it wasn't as bad. Things have been substantially better for my wife and I since we started Paxlovid. Our seven year old is feeling fine, and our three year old who is disabled and tends to get sick fairly often has a fever and slept for a day straight and had the world's worst diarrhea. Her doctor (who almost exclusively sees disabled kids like her) seems completely unconcerned about it and said to just treat it like any other illness, push fluids and give her Tylenol and Ibuprofen alternately to keep her fever down.
  - NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    Anecdotal.
tlogan 4y ago
If science changes as soon as one crosses the border means it is not science. CDC might be wrong here but they will never admit. Never.

Someone1234 4y ago

I've never heard of "commonsense.news" before, but it is by Bari Weiss[0] who is trying to create an "anti-cancel culture," "anti-woke" University called the University of Austin[1]. Her Wikipedia on her history kind of speaks for itself, in particular the "2017–2020" section[0]. Why does this matter? Because most of the articles claims are based on "spoke to us" quotes from anonymous staffers which cannot be independently verified. So it falls to the reputation of those publishing and their journalistic integrity/process, and at that point I leave it to you to make up your own mind. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_The_New_York_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss#2017%E2%80%932020:_... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Austin

dang 4y ago
On HN we try to go by article quality, not site quality: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22article%20quality%22%20%22site%20quality%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so.... The author names here are probably more important than whoever owns the site. Their credentials are on the line if the sources they claim to be quoting are made up. That doesn't prove anything, of course, but one's always guessing with these things, and readers need to make up their own minds. I understand the argument you're making, and it's not an obvious call, but I think it comes with more downside than upside, at least for HN. It's a trope of tribal internet argument (I mean in general—not talking about you here) to follow a "DAG of shame" in which you hop from any node to the most shameful associated thing, with the intention of discrediting the node from which you started. The problem is that each of those hops loses a lot of information, and one ends up in places that aren't particularly relevant, like whatever that university project is. What's bad about this for HN is that it makes threads more generic, predictable, and repetitive. It also polarizes discussion along the most intense axis. All of this makes discussion less interesting and more inflammatory. So while it's not an obvious call (more like 60-40 than 80-20) I think we're better off as a community to resist the habit of replacing topic X with the biggest or most shameful other-topic-Y that the dots connect to. It's not that there's no value in it, but it's the wrong move, given what we're trying to optimize for (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...).

kindatrue 4y ago

One of the authors tweeted this: "The rest of the world has accepted the endemic nature of Covid and moved on, but the U.S. is an int'l outlier, still pushing mass testing & chasing down every case." [0] I'm not sure what inverse universe he lives in given that we barely do any official testing, and contact tracing never even got off the ground. His retweets are also all the other well known covid-minimizers - including the infamous Jay Bhattacharya. [0] https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1546533258187390977 https://twitter.com/MartyMakary/status/1546533258187390977

KerrAvon 4y ago
Yeah, it's also a fabrication, unless "by the world" he means to exclude China.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  And Japan
  - amluto 4y ago
    And large parts of Europe, at least judging by the travel restrictions on their websites.
    - lovich 4y ago
      New Zealand as well for the list. I think we can be fairly certain the author is full of shit
    - veeti 4y ago
      Which parts are those exactly? Even the strictest countries like Germany no longer have any entry restrictions.
    - bonzini 4y ago
      Not sure about entry restrictions but there aren't any serious "behavioral" restrictions in Europe at the moment, despite most countries being through a BA.5 wave. Vaccine, testing and mask mandates have mostly been lifted. Here in Italy there's still a mask mandate on public transport, which is not uniformly enforced even, but that's it.

KerrAvon 4y ago

majormajor 4y ago

aplummer 4y ago

This is a really biased article pushing a particular viewpoint. If it wasn't, you would also include the studies the demonstrate the number of lives saved by lockdowns that happened, the impact of different levels and types of lockdowns etc. A good summary with links is here: https://www.the-scientist.com/features/counting-the-lives-saved-by-lockdownsand-lost-to-slow-action-67689 https://www.the-scientist.com/features/counting-the-lives-sa...

luxuryballs 4y ago
Obligatory “Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have concluded that lockdowns have done little to reduce COVID deaths but have had “devastating effects” on economies and numerous social ills.” https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature...
- akhmatova 4y ago
  Also obligatory is to point out the fact that the "study" was not peer reviewed; that it was written by economists, not public health experts (and has been severely criticized by several people who are recognized experts); that one of the authors (Hanke) is a senior director at a so-called think tank known for its is extreme pro-market bias; and that he published several basically crank tweets comparing lockdowns with 1930s German fascism.
  - luxuryballs 4y ago
    But did you read it?
    - akhmatova 4y ago
      I read enough of it to perform a basic smell test, yes. And in fact it's pretty easy to spot some of its more obvious shortcomings, as other reviewers have. Exactly as we would expect to find in the output of ideologically-driven academics working far outside of their own fields.

duxup 4y ago

I don’t really have a problem with making boosters available. Closing schools and masks have been gone in my area has been over for a while so the article seems to be mixing timelines in a way that is hard to follow.

abeppu 4y ago

I'm not saying there _aren't_ problems with decision-making or guidance from our public health agencies, but this article uses really different standards for judging positions taken by those agencies than it does for any dissenting position, in a way that ends up being nonsensical. Sure, let's critically evaluate the guidance put forward by our public health institutions, but quoting a statement from Norway's equivalent institution without the backing evidence doesn't make the US "wrong". If the evidence available on the efficacy of vaccines for kids is so ridiculously wide that it goes from -99% to +370% risk of infection, then surely Norway is _also_ drastically overstating its case when it says (about kids) "previous infection offers as good of protection as the vaccine against reinfection" esp since it _also_ seems like the protective effect of prior infection is both uncertain and changing. How about flatly declaring that guidance was "wrong" about school closures because minority and poor kids did markedly worse at math? Obviously these decisions are complex trade-offs, and one can't conclude that the choice was "wrong" simply by pointing out one of the costs. How about quoting a CDC scientist, who cannot possibly have strong evidence when making the prediction "CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children." Generations to come? Show us the data that lets this scientist predict the far future with such confidence. I get that it's deeply unnerving when these institutions make sweeping recommendations based on less firm data than we would normally demand. But not recommending anything, or not taking decisive action because of the limited data would _also_ have been irresponsible. When schools first closed, we didn't know a lot of things, but it would have been pretty reckless if agencies said "well this is putting a lot of people in the hospital and spreading fast, but we don't have the data to give definitive guidance yet, so you're on your own. Depending on the range of things your communities choose, maybe in a few months we'll have the evidence to say something."

rallison 4y ago
Agreed. I have a number of criticisms of the CDC, FDA and public institutions with respect to Covid, but this piece is highly biased and is misleading/wrong/cherry-picking with respect to the science. It seems the author has a general position of "interventions bad" and then works back from that to discredit anything related to interventions. For example, let's take just this single paragraph: > As of February, 75% of children in the U.S. already had natural immunity from prior infection. It could easily be over 90% of children today given how ubiquitous Omicron has been since then. The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity and a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons. Many countries have long credited natural immunity towards vaccine mandates. But not the U.S. First, there's this statement: "The CDC’s own research shows that natural immunity is better than vaccinated immunity." The linked study, reading through it, makes a different claim. The study showed that completion of a course of primary vaccination PLUS having had a prior Covid infection led to reduced severe outcomes more than just having had the primary course of vaccination alone. And even there, the CI (0.27 (0.09–0.84)) on the first scenario overlaps with the CI for vaccination alone. It would be notable if this showed that prior infection alone conferred better protection than vaccination alone, which is the author's claim. This study doesn't show that. It shows infection plus vaccination confers better immunity than vaccination alone. And, well, that's what basically any expert would have predicted as the most likely result. The second linked study (the NEJM one) gets closer, but largely only looks at infection rates (it does have some commentary on severe covid-19 rates, but this isn't adjusted for any confounders). It's most useful as a study on how immunity against infection wanes since the last immunity-conferring event, although it allows for some cross comparisons, such as comparing infection rates for natural immunity alone vs 2 doses alone vs 3 doses alone vs hybrid immunity. Possibly the biggest caveat is that the rate of testing for the different cohorts wasn't adjusted for: > Although differences in testing rates among cohorts and among subcohorts within specified cohorts were observed, their overall magnitude was relatively small. The rate of PCR testing was typically lower in the recovered, unvaccinated cohort than in the other cohorts, so the level of protection in this cohort as compared with that in the two-dose cohort may have been overestimated. So, it makes it harder to directly compare across cohorts. But, even assuming the cross comparison does hold up if you did correct for testing rates, there are a couple of things to call out in this study. First, three doses had significantly better numbers than two doses. However, the three-dose cohort was new at the time of this study, so this cohort only has results for the very first time slice, and that time slice doesn't exist for the natural immunity scenario, so we can't directly compare them. Second, this study also seems to show, with respect to immunity, that infection followed by vaccination is better than infection alone. Third, and most notably given this piece's commentary, is vaccination after natural immunity has waned. The study linked explicitly ends with this sentence in its discussion section: > We found that protection against the delta variant waned over time in both vaccinated and previously infected persons and that an additional vaccine dose restored protection. Let's look back at the wording in the original piece: > a recent New England Journal of Medicine study from Israel has questioned the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons It is telling that a study that ends by recommending a dose of vaccine to restore waning natural immunity is used to "question the benefits of vaccinating previously infected persons" in this piece. Now, there's a reasonable debate around how previous infection should be counted w.r.t. to immune status. E.g. one can make a reasonable case that documented prior infection plus a single dose should count as "fully vaccinated." Or, that hitting a minimum threshold on an antibody test should count as documentation of immunity. Etc. But, that's not what the piece is arguing - it misrepresents both of the studies linked in this one paragraph, and then puts forward a conclusion that is unsupported by either study. If anything, both studies provide evidence that is quite supportive of getting vaccinated at some point after infection, yet you'd never know that if you just read the paragraph from this piece. Pieces like this one are frustrating because they have the veneer of legitimacy - written by someone in the field, linking studies, etc. It takes a lot of time to really dive in to understand whether or not the claims being made are supported. And even then, it often takes broader knowledge of the state of research in the field. It's easy to cherry pick research that supports a bias while simply leaving out competing research. Ultimately, this piece does not come off as a good faith review of the scientific evidence.

strangeloops85 4y ago

The arguments they make regarding children's vaccines don't make much sense to me. The end target for the pediatric vaccine trials was immunobridging, which has widely been used for other common childhood vaccines. Are they arguing against those as well? If so, that goes against a widely accepted and validated strategy to bridge adult vaccines down to pediatric age groups. Efficacy is a very complicated thing to measure as variants change. The symptomatic disease efficacy seen for the pediatric trials compare well vs. Omicron to what we've seen for adults, so it's all consistent and makes sense. Also, would they argue against the annual flu shots? We don't even run efficacy trials for those every year for different strain compositions. Also, a bit of perspective: we vaccinate children for many illnesses that would result in comparatively "small" numbers of pediatric deaths (lower than Covid even!). The reason is that even rare pediatric deaths, if preventable, are terrible given the life-years lost. And there HAVE been FAR too many pediatric Covid deaths by our modern standards for pediatric infectious diseases. If Covid only affected kids, the absolute numbers of deaths would be a very worrisome thing. Second, the possibility of long-term complications from even non-fatal illnesses. For pediatric COVID, MIS-C and potential super antigen links to the recent spread of pediatric hepatitis are more than sufficient to meet that bar. Finally - there was no safety signal seen in the 5-12 year old pediatric vaccines that have been given out to millions for ~year already, and no signal in the under 5 trials as well. The myocarditis risk primarily seems in teenage and older groups and linked to puberty/adolescent hormones. There may be contrarian voices in the FDA and CDC as there will be in any large organization. But to believe their voices over the consensus requires a heavy dose of motivated reasoning and not engaging with some basic facts about the goals of pediatric vaccines and the ways vaccine trials work. There's a reason every pediatrician parent I know was first in line to get their kids vaccinated.

darkerside 4y ago
> We don't even run efficacy trials for those every year for different strain compositions. Now I'm curious. What is the reasoning behind pediatric flu shots? Is it dangerous to the child?
- Vecr 4y ago

LAC-Tech 4y ago

The one thing that struck me about Covid and the response was the western world rock bottom levels of trust in their governments (broadly defined). To me that's the real story - the demonstration of what amounts to a loss of legitimacy. (FWIW shutdowns did not bother me much, I got the two mandatory vaccines my jurisdiction required for air travel but refused the boosters, I generally wear masks in public because better safe than sorry.)

cf141q5325 4y ago
I think it boils down to a vicious cycle. Institutions are worried about a loss of credibility and are as a result very unwilling to acknowledge where they have been wrong, changed their minds or about any uncertainties that still exist. As a result people get the wrong impression and highly overestimate the competence of those institutions, and the confidence that their solutions warrant. Which makes those institutions even more afraid of loosing credibility. Which lead to some very comical parallel realities, like the WHO not aknowleding that COVID was airborne till 2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30939200 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30939200 Or differently put, if you have absolutely unrealistic expectations and deferred any critical thinking to another party, you are putting said party in a very very difficult situation. And if they not just lack the backbone to tell you this, but start pretending to be that competent and certain to match your expectations, it can become very dangerous.
- LAC-Tech 4y ago
  I'm not really saying COVID caused it. I'm saying in early 2020 institutional trust was already so slow that every newspaper and government department on earth could have said "the sky is blue" and a lot of people would have said "fuck you no it's not" by default.

bergenty 4y ago

danschumann 4y ago

Frustration is an emotion which seems to be ever increasing against a monolith that is the internet, where your voice doesn't feel like it matters, because you can't see the reaction of anyone.

swayvil 4y ago
Being on the internet is much like wearing a mask. It's VERY interesting how that progressed. It's like internet culture is infecting real life. People in real life becoming faceless and hive-mindish.

wonderwonder 4y ago

I have no idea if this is a valid article, the use of so many anonymous sources made me doubt every word. For all I know they are quoting someone on reddit claiming to work for the cdc. Every quote could have just been made up. It very much just appears to be opinion pretending to be news. With that said, I do agree with the proposal that if a kid has already had covid then why vaccinate them if the general consensus is that the vaccines only provide limited protection for a few months. All for vaccinating high risk people and I am vaccinated against covid with a booster from when they first came out but will not get another booster now that I have already had Covid. Omicron in general for most people is no worse than the flu, unpleasant but bearable. I fully understand the rush to vaccinate adults in the beginning when Delta was raging and we had limited understanding of the virus. Luckily Omicron is dominant now it seems to be much less damaging. This is not to downplay the very real consequences and deaths that do occur still from Covid. At this point in time my whole family has had it and I have accepted it as endemic and moved on.

Server6 4y ago
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tzs 4y ago
> Omicron in general for most people is no worse than the flu, unpleasant but bearable. Flu in the US kills around 12k to 50k per year, with a particularly bad year every few decades getting up to maybe 80k. Omicron killed somewhere between 150k and 250k in the US in less than a year, and that was with free vaccines that were highly effective against death easily available to pretty much everyone who was not a young child. That doesn't sound like no worse than the flu to me.
- jussij 4y ago
  Another big difference is how much pressure COVID can exert on the hospital system. The COVID hospitalization rates are magnitudes larger than the worst ever flu season.

jnash 4y ago

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unyttigfjelltol 4y ago

The problem is that the people making these decisions are terrified. Indeed, the people who ought to have made the most careful study of COVID, act most terrified of it. So, either the terror is the result of careful, inadequately disclosed study of the virus, or these agencies are unable to curb the desperation of voters and politicians to do something, anything to protect themselves and their loved ones from something that was seriously overhyped from the start.

ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
that is certainly an interesting imagined reality

mritun 4y ago

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jonstewart 4y ago

wiskinator 4y ago
Yeah - this article seems like an Op Ed.

motohagiography 4y ago

My impression working with a couple pubilic health agencies over the last half decade or so is that they are considered effectively "rogue" by the institutions they are accountable to, they operate as surveillance organizations with the same kind of secrecy culture as intelligence work, their management staff revolve in and out from international NGOs and univeristy admins, they treat privacy laws and policy with contempt, epidemiologists aren't doctors or biologists but "social scientists" with a particular critical bent, and they are very concerned about being held accountable for the policies they have influenced and executed because they know what they tried to do. Mostly, they are good people wanting to do good work, but imo, public health agencies have become a para-intelligence services with explicitly political aims. There is a network of academics who see health and health information as a policy lever, and they have been out in force leveraging it through public health agencies during the pandemic. I think they have discredited themselves over travel bans, vax passports, the objectively insane and poisonous rhetoric about the "hesitant," and arbitrary mandates with no accountability for those who enforced them. I don't think they can be trusted to be arbiters of science for people with a basic statistical reasoning skills and a belief in the existence of truth. The article articulates a more general and relevant sentiment, which is that the medical establishment has forfeited its public trust.

gp 4y ago
> epidemiologists aren't doctors or biologists but "social scientists" with a particular critical bent Many, if not most of the epidemiologists at the CDC hold M.Ds, and I can speak from personal experience that many have disdain for both political parties For example there is a lot of frustration at how the media is making a giant scare about Monkeypox, when it is isolated to certain communities and can be prevented with the smallpox vaccine which we already have stockpiled. > they operate as surveillance organizations with the same kind of secrecy culture as intelligence work This is blatantly false - the CDC publishes almost everything it does. Mostly boring statistics, reporting, investigating claims >public health agencies have become a para-intelligence services with explicitly political aims Really? >I think they have discredited themselves over travel bans, vax passports, the objectively insane and poisonous rhetoric about the "hesitant," You should visit the CDC's public museum in Atlanta - I think you will see all the good that vaccines and antibiotics have done for the world. Little else in medicine matters, comparatively, in terms of increased lifespans around the globe

wiskinator 4y ago

The sources this article cites regarding masking is a single pre-print that hasn't been peer reviewed yet, and it cites no sources at all for the claim that | "Then they ignored natural immunity. Wrong again. The vast majority of children have already had Covid, but this has made no difference in the blanket mandates for childhood vaccines. And now, by mandating vaccines and boosters for young healthy people, with no strong supporting data, these agencies are only further eroding public trust."

LewisVerstappen 4y ago
Do you have any sources that cloth masking (the types of masks worn by the vast majority of school children) works to reduce the spread?
- rajup 4y ago
  They don’t because there isn’t. It’s just idiotic medical security theater. Unless the right masks are worn correctly 100% of the time, which lets be honest is not happening. I guess this is how superstitions start in a sense…
  - lemmsjid 4y ago
    https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/mandatory-masking-schools-reduced-covid-19-cases-during-delta-surge https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/mandatory-mask... “In the current study, most COVID-19 cases among students and staff were acquired from the community and approximately 10% of cases were acquired within school. The researchers found that for every 100 community-acquired cases, school districts with mandatory masking had approximately 7.3 cases of in-school infections, while optionally masked districts had 26.4 cases of in-school infections. In other words, school districts with optional masking had approximately 3.6 times the rate of in-school COVID-19 cases when compared to schools with mandatory masking. These data also show that mandatory masking was associated with a 72% reduction of in-school COVID-19 cases, compared to districts with optional masking.” From Pediatrics: https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/6/e2022056687/185379/School-Masking-Policies-and-Secondary-SARS-CoV-2?autologincheck=redirected https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/149/6/e20220...

chiefalchemist 4y ago

> "That particular FDA doctor was referring to two recent developments inside the agency. First, how, with no solid clinical data, the agency authorized Covid vaccines for infants and toddlers, including those who already had Covid. And second, the fact that just months before, the FDA bypassed their external experts to authorize booster shots for young children." > "Why are they embarrassed? In short, bad science. The longer answer: that the heads of their agencies are using weak or flawed data to make critically important public health decisions. That such decisions are being driven by what’s politically palatable to people in Washington or to the Biden administration. And that they have a myopic focus on one virus instead of overall health." So can we finally stop blaming the general public for the ongoing narrative that simply doesn't pass the smell test? Meanwhile, in Brazil, two doctors are trying to invent their own mRNA vax. And if they do they're promising to give it away...because The First World Healthcare Industrial Complex is more concerned about money over saving lives? And the media and political powers are silent? Too much of the past couple+ years has been a shit show. If it's not negligence then it's intentional. Neither is good.

conqueso 4y ago

bigbluedots 4y ago

Anything with 'common sense' in the title has become a red flag for me.

dredmorbius 4y ago
It of course has numerous allusory and whistling characteristics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense It certainly has populist appeal, and is consciously used to evoke same.

puffoflogic 4y ago

bmelton 4y ago
On your advice, I did my level best to figure out who they worked with. Marty Makary works at Johns Hopkins, which is in Maryland, so I am guessing that the genocidal republican governor you're referring to in that case is Larry Hogan? Tracy Beth Høeg lists "consultant epidemiologist" for the Florida Department of Health, so I guess her closest governor is Ron Desantis? Are you intending to support that both of those governors are genocidal, and also republicans, or is it your intent to assert that all republicans who are governors are genocidal?

bubbajack9988 4y ago

elil17 4y ago
Yeah it doesn’t strike me as good journalism. Good journalists are typically very reluctant to publish unattributed quotes - they often look for a compelling reason to let someone speak anonymously and, if they find one, they explain that reason to their readers. Heck, even most bad journalists (e.g. from biased publications) at least attribute their quotes. This article is filled with quotes that have no source and therefore no credibility.
camdenlock 4y ago
Just because it doesn’t match your own political alignment doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
- epgui 4y ago
Jimmc414 4y ago
No I didn't. The claims in the article are quite easily verified if you follow the links to the FDA site. What are your thoughts on the Pfizer and Moderna studies referenced in this article? I'd love to hear someone put effort into disputing those facts directly with other facts instead of engaging in ad hominem attacks on the publisher.
- listless 4y ago
  I’m with you, but at the same time there is a giant red flag here. This hasn’t been covered by any major news source right or left. If there was any “there there” Fox News would run a special on this for a month straight. If you come with no creds and no attributable sources, why should we listen?
  - mapt 4y ago

imperio59 4y ago

Despite this tech companies are still requiring vaccines to come work in person, yet are wondering why no one wants to go back... Testing is way safer at this point than two doses against a strain that hasn't been dominant since late 2020. Lots of people are getting sick anyways even if they are vaccinated from other strains they aren't protected against, yet we discriminate against anyone who decided not to get the shot for religious reasons, or who can't get it for medical reasons. The world will look back on these years as collective insanity.

epgui 4y ago
> The world will look back on these years as collective insanity. I'm a biochemist, and I can assure you that scientists have been dismayed at the collective insanity since around March 2020, but we're definitely not dismayed at the same things as you are.
- cf141q5325 4y ago
  I had a sign at my university entrance asking a vaccine status or current test as a "negative proof for covid19". As in your vaccine status proofs you dont have covid19. Any scientist who isnt deeply ashamed of this should really get the money for their degree back. Pretending that vaccines are in any way safer then or as safe as actual tests is simply horrific.
  - epgui 4y ago
    The word “proof” in that context just doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s an administrative context, not a scientific context. It’s not that hard to understand.
    - cf141q5325 4y ago
      Apparently i am a bit slow. Please do elaborate, i am really curious how your vaccine status can be used to verify that there is no indication for a covid infection.

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tlogan 4y ago

The main problem here is that Public health agencies are refusing to admit they are / were wrong in certain cases causing all political non sense. The second problem is that public healt official ended relying too much on mandates/enforcements and way too little on propaganda. For example, it is obvious now that vaccines do not prevent one from getting COVID and spreading COVID. Yes - vaccines definitely make having COVID like a mild fly: I got it just now and I was just a little sick for a couple of days. But they still claim that vaccines are preventing the spread. And then the approach is really bad: instead of running “viagra style” commercials on TV for vaccinations they decided to go with heavy handed mandates and requirements. I bet a couple of Steph Curry and Tom Brady commercials about vaccination will do wonder.

seizethegdgap 4y ago
My person, Donald Trump was getting booed for telling people at his rallys to get the vaccine, and you think having a superstar in the least-liked sports league amongst Republicans tell them to get shots would work better than a mandate? https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-alabama-rally-after-telling-supporters-get-vaccinated-n1277404 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-booed-al... https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/donald-trump-booster-shot-boos/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/20/politics/donald-trump-booster... https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/515665-new-poll-says-nba-ratings-have-plunged-because-of/ https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture...
- tlogan 4y ago
  Yes - it will help. At least it will not hurt CDC as much as mandates. It seems strange that CDC had policy “if somebody does not want vaccine we should force them instead convince them”. So strange that many people started being suspicious. Meaning we did not have any - zero - nada - none - commericals on TV for vaccinations. And many many crypto ones.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > we did not have any - zero - nada - none - commericals on TV for vaccinations. That's sad your country didn't see the need to advertise. In the US we had tons of them.

throwaway892238 4y ago

For a second there I thought this was an actual news organization's article, but actually it's a blog. Kind of funny how neither cites sources for claims, tho. "Honest news for sane people" indeed.

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beloch 4y ago

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divbzero 4y ago

I think OP missed the fact that clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines in children measured neutralizing antibodies as the surrogate endpoint, similar to clinical trials for other vaccines [1]. So it is not surprising that the trials could achieve their primary endpoint while being inconclusive on preventing infection. On top of that, the benefit of vaccination can arise not just from preventing infection but also from reducing disease severity. [1]: https://www.fda.gov/drugs/development-resources/table-surrogate-endpoints-were-basis-drug-approval-or-licensure https://www.fda.gov/drugs/development-resources/table-surrog... "Table of Surrogate Endpoints That Were the Basis of Drug Approval or Licensure"

mmmpetrichor 4y ago

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etchalon 4y ago
The HN community has shown a willingness to treat contrarian views with little to no skepticism, while being wildly insistent on perfection in mainstream sources.
- epgui 4y ago
  Biochemist: can confirm.
calebm 4y ago
This is the news org started by Bari Weiss (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss)

spoonjim 4y ago

deleted 4y ago
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x86x87 4y ago
The tragedy is that the pandemic was politicized and wearing or not wearing a mask was considered a political statement. Somewhere between 2010 and 2020 we have lost, as a society, the ability to think and reason based on logic and arguments. Most people today actively refuse to think (and hn is a bubble where people are really smart, educated and can actually hold a conversation but it's by no mean something that represents society at large). Anyway... back to politics. I knew that the CDC was full of BS when they came out with their "yeah, you don't need masks. they are only needed at the hospitals. leave the N95s for them". That being said, people refused to think and herd instinct kicked in. Should you wear a mask when you're in open air an there is noone around? Probably not. Should you wear one when in the middle of a crowd and people are literally sneezing left an right? Probably yes. After the initial handling by the CDC it was lie after half-truth after lie. Everyone wanted to make this a big deal (some to point at the bad handling of the leading political party, some to point at how well they were handling it). It's also extremely suspect how everyone switched the beat of the drums from "this is bad people. we are all going to die" to "pandemic over. social distancing over. we need to get back to living". It amazes me how in spite of having a vaccine today, we have a higher case rate today than we had for most of 2020 when we were told we are going to die. It's mindblowing. If this pandemic taught me anything is that I should never judge situations I've not been in before (whenever I watched an apocalypse/zombie/pandemic movie I used to think to myself: naah, people would not be that stupid. c'mon this is not realistic. turns out that we are really like herd animals and we really are that stupid).
- epgui 4y ago
  > "yeah, you don't need masks. they are only needed at the hospitals. leave the N95s for them" The main message was not that masks were "only needed at the hospitals". You will remember that in the early days, there were serious supply issues with masks, and some hospitals, clinics and other healthcare providers had difficulty securing their own supplies. It was a question of priorities.

HWR_14 4y ago

Please consider the source. These authors are health care officials working for Rick Scott (Republican governor of Florida) and Glenn Youngkin (Republican governor of Virginia), both of whom have a hard political stance downplaying COVID.

cf141q5325 4y ago
Please also consider more then just who wrote it. Otherwise you end up in an echo chamber. Either they can make a valid point or they cant.
- diob 4y ago
  The problem is, considering everything regardless of intention / author would mean wasting a lot of time and energy. In other words, someone is always going to jump up and down for your attention, willing to spew bs (sometimes mixed with fact), to slow you down and delay you. Being able to ignore it and focus on real issues is important.
  - cf141q5325 4y ago
    Sure but its unfortunately not optional if you dont want to end up in a echochamber. And being in one gets dangerous fast. If you filter something as bullshit, you should at least be able to say why it is bullshit, outside of just who wrote it.
    - diob 4y ago
      I disagree, but I get a portion of my view on it from "The Ass Is A Poor Receptacle For The Head: Why Democrats Suck At Communication, And How They Could Improve". (https://www.amazon.com/Ass-Poor-Receptacle-Head-Communication-ebook/dp/B0050O7VLW https://www.amazon.com/Ass-Poor-Receptacle-Head-Communicatio...) It goes into how Democrats get mired in reacting / reading / responding to everything, when detractors are acting in bad faith to consume their time / fill the airwaves and media. I recommend the book. It's great, short, and applicable far outside Democrats / politics.

cm2187 4y ago

synicalx 4y ago
Wow I'd completely forgotten about that! I remember seeing people during the early COVID days declaring publicly that they'd rather catch COVID than get the "Trump vaccine". People hate him so much he turned them into anti-vaxxers. To clarify here: I'm not pro Trump or Biden, I'm not even American. I'm just pointing out that politics makes people irrational.
- vkazanov 4y ago
  Or maybe it is an example of how politics makes people say and do stupid things on principle?
  - synicalx 4y ago
    That is exactly my point
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  Until Biden got elected and then they no longer believed in my body my choice and wanted to fire everyone that wasn't vaxxed.
  - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago
    - encryptluks2 4y ago
      No, because people get vaccinated to protect themselves.
      - ImPostingOnHN 4y ago

foota 4y ago

TheGigaChad 4y ago

thenerdhead 4y ago

Regardless of what side of the fence you sit on, the least we should see is public health agencies take a position that we are smarter than we were when this whole thing started and start to think about a guiding policy for the long term. Many large companies the size of small countries have already adjusted their policies for the long term. Is that what we have to come to expect in the world that our working environments are ahead of our public health agencies?

Tokkemon 4y ago

Ah, commonsense."news", the Bari Weiss platform. Excuse me while I go elsewhere for reliable news.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

Yes, like the people wearing double-masks outside walking their dogs still (Seattle). The CDC _never_ said wearing a mask outside is useful, and never said that people are catching it outdoors. So I don't know where the "idea" came that wearing a mask outside is "better" than not. It's just probably paranoia at this point (and looking like a "good person") and has nothing to do with infection control.