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Here we go again... Covid was an extreme case of "this is the only truth, everyone else has rocks for brains", and then the truth changing overnight. Masks don

Here we go again... Covid was an extreme case of "this is the only truth, everyone else has rocks for brains", and then the truth changing overnight. Masks don't help, you don't need them, just wash your hands, to you must wear a mask, vaccinated people don't get sick, don't spread the virus, to whoops, heart issues are just a conspiracy thory, to countries stopping use of specific vaccines due to heart issues. Don't be like that, accept that other theories are possible, and that we don't know the whole truth yet.

kube-system 3y ago
This is a revisionist interpretation of history. The initial recommendation not to go out and panic buy masks was for a good reason, healthcare providers needed them first. And in regards to the behavior of the virus, recommendations were always based on the best understanding of the virus at the time and were updated as those understandings changed. Public health guidance isn't "the science", it is a snapshot of professional interpretation of science at a single point in time.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  We're not talking about scientific process, which changes with new evidence, we're talking about calling people as "heads filled with rocks" for suggesting that the current recommendations are bad/wrong/inapropriate/...., censoring them from social networks, calling them covid deniers, conspiracy theorists, having their wikipedia edits removed, doxing them, and in some cases, even doing stuff that affects their livelyhood, possible medical licences etc., then having the 'truth' change, not acknowledge that 'we' were wrong, and 'they' were right and apologizing, but again, doing all those things to the next group (eg. the ones who bought and wore masks in the time when it was "enough to just wash your hands" were "attacked" first, then the "attack" moved over to the ones who didn't want to wear a mask). If someone (from the government, national 'cdc', whoever) stood up infront of the cameras, said "we fucked up, masks are really needed, we thought so otherwise and gave bad advice, we're sorry, please wear masks", then sure... some will get mad, because their relatives died by following the advice, but for most, it would be a decent thing done by their governments... but banning people who suggested that we need masks, and then banning people who suggested that we didn't need masks without unbanning the first group, is, well... stupid. > The initial recommendation not to go out and panic buy masks was for a good reason, healthcare providers needed them first. Oh yeah, just a thing I'd like to see with people in power, scientists in doctors... "we lied to you, because we couldn't fill out order forms in time, you could have died by following our advice, but here's new advice, we're totally not lying now, whoopsie, sorry!" (but without the 'sorry'). How am I supposed to trust them now, when they recommend something else?
  - kube-system 3y ago
    > we're talking about calling people as "heads filled with rocks" for suggesting that the current recommendations are bad/wrong/inapropriate/. There's two different things to discuss here. One is "the science" and one is "public health guidelines", and they're different things. It is one thing to discuss the behavior of the virus in a scientific context. It is another thing to spread memes, FUD, or armchair conjecture in a forum of non-experts that make claims counter to the latest scientific consensus. > censoring them from social networks, calling them covid deniers, conspiracy theorists, having their wikipedia edits removed, This isn't a fault of scientists or regulators. This is a failure of social media and their user base. They are incapable of being nuanced enough to determine the difference between scientific discussion, pseudoscience, conjecture, and malice. And so, those platforms became filled with speech that confused all four, and those who managed those platforms threw up their hands and resorted to heavy handed tactics because they lack the capability to do anything more precise. > If someone (from the government, national 'cdc', whoever) stood up infront of the cameras, said "we fucked up, masks are really needed When the guidance changed, they did announce the change, along with the reason. The reason wasn't a "fuck up" it was new data that changed the calculus. > Oh yeah, just a thing I'd like to see with people in power, scientists in doctors... "we lied to you, because we couldn't fill out order forms in time, you could have died by following our advice, but here's new advice, we're totally not lying now, whoopsie, sorry!" (but without the 'sorry'). How am I supposed to trust them now, when they recommend something else? That isn't at all what happened, or what the problem was. The national stockpile of masks wasn't mismanaged by scientists, it was mismanaged by politicians. And JIT inventory wasn't implemented by distributors and hospital management by scientists, it was done by MBAs. And divesting manufacturing overseas wasn't done by scientists, it was done by wall street. And again, as I said in a sibling comment, the CDC was upfront about the rationale from the beginning.
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      > There's two different things to discuss here. One is "the science" and one is "public health guidelines", and they're different things. It is one thing to discuss the behavior of the virus in a scientific context. It is another thing to spread memes, FUD, or armchair conjecture in a forum of non-experts that make claims counter to the latest scientific consensus. But what if the memes and FUD are right? Should we really censor the paranoid conspiracy theorist, that said that you need a mask, when fauci was saying that washing hands is enough? What about when vaccines became available, someone said "even if vaccinated, you'll still get it, you can still spread it to your grandma, and she can still die from it, and the 'vaccinated people don't get ill' is a lie!"? I mean... it turned out to be true, but it got deleted from facebook and it got you banned from a lot of reddit. > This isn't a fault of scientists or regulators. This is a failure of social media and their user base. They are incapable of being nuanced enough to determine the difference between scientific discussion, pseudoscience, conjecture, and malice. And so, those platforms became filled with speech that confused all four, and those who managed those platforms threw up their hands and resorted to heavy handed tactics because they lack the capability to do anything more precise. ...and wikipedia, the topic of this post. > That isn't at all what happened, or what the problem was. The national stockpile of masks wasn't mismanaged by scientists, it was mismanaged by politicians. And JIT inventory wasn't implemented by distributors and hospital management by scientists, it was done by MBAs. And divesting manufacturing overseas wasn't done by scientists, it was done by wall street. And again, as I said in a sibling comment, the CDC was upfront about the rationale from the beginning. The general consensus was, that masks don't help a lot, that's why you don't need them. It wasn't "you really need a mask, and we'll mandate it soon, but we don't have enough for now".
- philwelch 3y ago
  > The initial recommendation not to go out and panic buy masks was for a good reason, healthcare providers needed them first. Except that wasn’t the messaging at the time. The messaging at the time was that masks didn’t work. Then, when the supply chain caught up and the authorities wanted to impose mask mandates, the messaging changed and they said masks did work. The “facts” were manipulated in order to align with the desired policy outcomes.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    > Except that wasn’t the messaging at the time. The messaging at the time was that masks didn’t work. Then, when the supply chain caught up and the authorities wanted to impose mask mandates, the messaging changed and they said masks did work. The “facts” were manipulated in order to align with the desired policy outcomes. That isn't true, at least in regards to the CDC's guidance. The CDC was up front about the reasoning from the beginning. There were others who repeated different variations of this, which has clouded this topic for a long time. > March 24, 2020 > “Facemasks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers,” the government agency says. > https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd...
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-117hr2316ih/html/BILLS-117hr2316ih.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-117hr2316ih/html/B... (7) In March 2020, Dr. Fauci told Americans not to wear masks, noting: ``There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you are in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it is not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences--people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.''. Also: (10) Dr. Fauci also now claims that herd immunity will require 80 to 85 percent of Americans to get the vaccine. Somehow herd immunity dissapeared from the media too.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  > healthcare providers needed them first. It's super confusing due to all the lying, but actually that's the revisionist history. The real timeline goes like this: 1. Scientists are asked if masks will work to stop COVID. They say no because there's little to no evidence in the literature that surgical/cloth masks can stop the spread of a respiratory virus. This initial position is correct. 2. There is a very short lived campaign by professional activist types called #MasksForAll which pressures public health officials to recommend masks for everyone. 3. Scientific advisors discuss in private and say things like "it probably won't help but can't really hurt so why not" and agree to support it. 4. Message changes. 5. People demand explanations for why the message changed. Mostly officials stay silent and refuse to answer. Fauci specifically (not so much elsewhere) claims that this was a vast conspiracy (!) to manage supply chain capacity. But this isn't correct and private correspondence uncovered afterwards reveals this, for example, Fauci is asked in private emails what he thinks about masks and answers the same way as in step (1). What happened here took a lot of work to uncover, but there's no longer any doubt about the correct sequence of events here. The idea of "masks don't work" being a noble lie, is itself a lie, which is why it's so confusing - Fauci and allies lied about lying. As an example of just one piece of evidence pointing in this direction, a BBC journalist tweeted: https://archive.is/20201205224307/https://twitter.com/deb_cohen/status/1282244773030633473#selection-4233.0-4270.1 https://archive.is/20201205224307/https://twitter.com/deb_co... > We had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO who did not deny (she later deleted the tweet as orthodoxy inverted and the true reasons for masking were covered up) But there's also the fact that mask mandates didn't have any effect when introduced, which shows that the initial stance was the correct one. And the posited conspiracy is a stupid one too. Almost all masks were imported and governments can easily seize shipments at the ports to control distribution if they need to. Lying to the public (and by extension, health workers) is by far the most idiotic way to manage supply chains imaginable. Why did they do this? Public health seems to have big cultural problems with the idea that tradeoffs exist. In both private and public they tend to describe their proposed policies as being cost-free. If you and everyone around you genuinely believes that any health policy is pure upside then why not mandate masks? It can't hurt and might help, therefore, you must do it. But people outside public health culture expect recommendations to be stable and tradeoffs to be justified. So they conclude that they must lie to the public, because they know deep down that expressing their true beliefs and true level of uncertainty would discredit them.
- aakresearch 3y ago
  Wow, the projection here is blatant! Well done. Also, "a good reason" may be so in the court of (some) public opinion, but not so much in the court of law. No matter how justified one's reasons are, if they lead to somebody's death it is a case for manslaughter, is it not? It was later drummed up by pretty much all masking enthusiasts that not wearing a mask is equal to murdering a grandma or two, and some "immunnocompromised" people on top. Surely, grand-scale messaging from position of high authority that "you don't need to wear a mask" will have a quantifiable number of associated deaths, and a very substantial one, under such assumption? Why the perpetrators of the message aren't put on trial for manslaughter? After all, the court may find that they had a "good reason" and acquit them of charges! I will have some basis to believe "public health" messaging, but not before such case is heard. What is the chance it will be? I know it will never happen.
hot_gril 3y ago
I think scientific experts were clear that they don't know the whole truth, but people citing the experts, not so much. Radio ads called the covid19 vaccine "100% safe," while experts only said it was probably less risky than covid19 itself. The bigger issue was, if some in the scientific or medical community disagreed, it didn't seem like they could safely voice that disagreement.

kube-system 3y ago

This is a revisionist interpretation of history. The initial recommendation not to go out and panic buy masks was for a good reason, healthcare providers needed them first. And in regards to the behavior of the virus, recommendations were always based on the best understanding of the virus at the time and were updated as those understandings changed. Public health guidance isn't "the science", it is a snapshot of professional interpretation of science at a single point in time.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
We're not talking about scientific process, which changes with new evidence, we're talking about calling people as "heads filled with rocks" for suggesting that the current recommendations are bad/wrong/inapropriate/...., censoring them from social networks, calling them covid deniers, conspiracy theorists, having their wikipedia edits removed, doxing them, and in some cases, even doing stuff that affects their livelyhood, possible medical licences etc., then having the 'truth' change, not acknowledge that 'we' were wrong, and 'they' were right and apologizing, but again, doing all those things to the next group (eg. the ones who bought and wore masks in the time when it was "enough to just wash your hands" were "attacked" first, then the "attack" moved over to the ones who didn't want to wear a mask). If someone (from the government, national 'cdc', whoever) stood up infront of the cameras, said "we fucked up, masks are really needed, we thought so otherwise and gave bad advice, we're sorry, please wear masks", then sure... some will get mad, because their relatives died by following the advice, but for most, it would be a decent thing done by their governments... but banning people who suggested that we need masks, and then banning people who suggested that we didn't need masks without unbanning the first group, is, well... stupid. > The initial recommendation not to go out and panic buy masks was for a good reason, healthcare providers needed them first. Oh yeah, just a thing I'd like to see with people in power, scientists in doctors... "we lied to you, because we couldn't fill out order forms in time, you could have died by following our advice, but here's new advice, we're totally not lying now, whoopsie, sorry!" (but without the 'sorry'). How am I supposed to trust them now, when they recommend something else?
- kube-system 3y ago
  > we're talking about calling people as "heads filled with rocks" for suggesting that the current recommendations are bad/wrong/inapropriate/. There's two different things to discuss here. One is "the science" and one is "public health guidelines", and they're different things. It is one thing to discuss the behavior of the virus in a scientific context. It is another thing to spread memes, FUD, or armchair conjecture in a forum of non-experts that make claims counter to the latest scientific consensus. > censoring them from social networks, calling them covid deniers, conspiracy theorists, having their wikipedia edits removed, This isn't a fault of scientists or regulators. This is a failure of social media and their user base. They are incapable of being nuanced enough to determine the difference between scientific discussion, pseudoscience, conjecture, and malice. And so, those platforms became filled with speech that confused all four, and those who managed those platforms threw up their hands and resorted to heavy handed tactics because they lack the capability to do anything more precise. > If someone (from the government, national 'cdc', whoever) stood up infront of the cameras, said "we fucked up, masks are really needed When the guidance changed, they did announce the change, along with the reason. The reason wasn't a "fuck up" it was new data that changed the calculus. > Oh yeah, just a thing I'd like to see with people in power, scientists in doctors... "we lied to you, because we couldn't fill out order forms in time, you could have died by following our advice, but here's new advice, we're totally not lying now, whoopsie, sorry!" (but without the 'sorry'). How am I supposed to trust them now, when they recommend something else? That isn't at all what happened, or what the problem was. The national stockpile of masks wasn't mismanaged by scientists, it was mismanaged by politicians. And JIT inventory wasn't implemented by distributors and hospital management by scientists, it was done by MBAs. And divesting manufacturing overseas wasn't done by scientists, it was done by wall street. And again, as I said in a sibling comment, the CDC was upfront about the rationale from the beginning.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    > There's two different things to discuss here. One is "the science" and one is "public health guidelines", and they're different things. It is one thing to discuss the behavior of the virus in a scientific context. It is another thing to spread memes, FUD, or armchair conjecture in a forum of non-experts that make claims counter to the latest scientific consensus. But what if the memes and FUD are right? Should we really censor the paranoid conspiracy theorist, that said that you need a mask, when fauci was saying that washing hands is enough? What about when vaccines became available, someone said "even if vaccinated, you'll still get it, you can still spread it to your grandma, and she can still die from it, and the 'vaccinated people don't get ill' is a lie!"? I mean... it turned out to be true, but it got deleted from facebook and it got you banned from a lot of reddit. > This isn't a fault of scientists or regulators. This is a failure of social media and their user base. They are incapable of being nuanced enough to determine the difference between scientific discussion, pseudoscience, conjecture, and malice. And so, those platforms became filled with speech that confused all four, and those who managed those platforms threw up their hands and resorted to heavy handed tactics because they lack the capability to do anything more precise. ...and wikipedia, the topic of this post. > That isn't at all what happened, or what the problem was. The national stockpile of masks wasn't mismanaged by scientists, it was mismanaged by politicians. And JIT inventory wasn't implemented by distributors and hospital management by scientists, it was done by MBAs. And divesting manufacturing overseas wasn't done by scientists, it was done by wall street. And again, as I said in a sibling comment, the CDC was upfront about the rationale from the beginning. The general consensus was, that masks don't help a lot, that's why you don't need them. It wasn't "you really need a mask, and we'll mandate it soon, but we don't have enough for now".
philwelch 3y ago
> The initial recommendation not to go out and panic buy masks was for a good reason, healthcare providers needed them first. Except that wasn’t the messaging at the time. The messaging at the time was that masks didn’t work. Then, when the supply chain caught up and the authorities wanted to impose mask mandates, the messaging changed and they said masks did work. The “facts” were manipulated in order to align with the desired policy outcomes.
- kube-system 3y ago
  > Except that wasn’t the messaging at the time. The messaging at the time was that masks didn’t work. Then, when the supply chain caught up and the authorities wanted to impose mask mandates, the messaging changed and they said masks did work. The “facts” were manipulated in order to align with the desired policy outcomes. That isn't true, at least in regards to the CDC's guidance. The CDC was up front about the reasoning from the beginning. There were others who repeated different variations of this, which has clouded this topic for a long time. > March 24, 2020 > “Facemasks may be in short supply and they should be saved for caregivers,” the government agency says. > https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pandemic https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd...
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-117hr2316ih/html/BILLS-117hr2316ih.htm https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-117hr2316ih/html/B... (7) In March 2020, Dr. Fauci told Americans not to wear masks, noting: ``There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you are in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it is not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences--people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.''. Also: (10) Dr. Fauci also now claims that herd immunity will require 80 to 85 percent of Americans to get the vaccine. Somehow herd immunity dissapeared from the media too.
nvm0n2 3y ago
> healthcare providers needed them first. It's super confusing due to all the lying, but actually that's the revisionist history. The real timeline goes like this: 1. Scientists are asked if masks will work to stop COVID. They say no because there's little to no evidence in the literature that surgical/cloth masks can stop the spread of a respiratory virus. This initial position is correct. 2. There is a very short lived campaign by professional activist types called #MasksForAll which pressures public health officials to recommend masks for everyone. 3. Scientific advisors discuss in private and say things like "it probably won't help but can't really hurt so why not" and agree to support it. 4. Message changes. 5. People demand explanations for why the message changed. Mostly officials stay silent and refuse to answer. Fauci specifically (not so much elsewhere) claims that this was a vast conspiracy (!) to manage supply chain capacity. But this isn't correct and private correspondence uncovered afterwards reveals this, for example, Fauci is asked in private emails what he thinks about masks and answers the same way as in step (1). What happened here took a lot of work to uncover, but there's no longer any doubt about the correct sequence of events here. The idea of "masks don't work" being a noble lie, is itself a lie, which is why it's so confusing - Fauci and allies lied about lying. As an example of just one piece of evidence pointing in this direction, a BBC journalist tweeted: https://archive.is/20201205224307/https://twitter.com/deb_cohen/status/1282244773030633473#selection-4233.0-4270.1 https://archive.is/20201205224307/https://twitter.com/deb_co... > We had been told by various sources WHO committee reviewing the evidence had not backed masks but they recommended them due to political lobbying. This point was put to WHO who did not deny (she later deleted the tweet as orthodoxy inverted and the true reasons for masking were covered up) But there's also the fact that mask mandates didn't have any effect when introduced, which shows that the initial stance was the correct one. And the posited conspiracy is a stupid one too. Almost all masks were imported and governments can easily seize shipments at the ports to control distribution if they need to. Lying to the public (and by extension, health workers) is by far the most idiotic way to manage supply chains imaginable. Why did they do this? Public health seems to have big cultural problems with the idea that tradeoffs exist. In both private and public they tend to describe their proposed policies as being cost-free. If you and everyone around you genuinely believes that any health policy is pure upside then why not mandate masks? It can't hurt and might help, therefore, you must do it. But people outside public health culture expect recommendations to be stable and tradeoffs to be justified. So they conclude that they must lie to the public, because they know deep down that expressing their true beliefs and true level of uncertainty would discredit them.
aakresearch 3y ago
Wow, the projection here is blatant! Well done. Also, "a good reason" may be so in the court of (some) public opinion, but not so much in the court of law. No matter how justified one's reasons are, if they lead to somebody's death it is a case for manslaughter, is it not? It was later drummed up by pretty much all masking enthusiasts that not wearing a mask is equal to murdering a grandma or two, and some "immunnocompromised" people on top. Surely, grand-scale messaging from position of high authority that "you don't need to wear a mask" will have a quantifiable number of associated deaths, and a very substantial one, under such assumption? Why the perpetrators of the message aren't put on trial for manslaughter? After all, the court may find that they had a "good reason" and acquit them of charges! I will have some basis to believe "public health" messaging, but not before such case is heard. What is the chance it will be? I know it will never happen.

hot_gril 3y ago

I think scientific experts were clear that they don't know the whole truth, but people citing the experts, not so much. Radio ads called the covid19 vaccine "100% safe," while experts only said it was probably less risky than covid19 itself. The bigger issue was, if some in the scientific or medical community disagreed, it didn't seem like they could safely voice that disagreement.