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There are lots of places where common sense and intuition fail us. Experts are important. The issue here is they tried a hamfisted approach of lying to prevent panic buying.

What should have happened was "masks work, here's an approved pattern you can make at home with just some cloth, and we're nationalizing PPE production and distribution for the time being; please know that's so the healthcare workers who may save your lives can stay alive".

Exactly. There's no denying that. And that's the public statement that we all deserved. But we're all too used to accepting misinformation from the authorities because we trust that they know better and that the ends will justify the means, which is a highly dangerous mindset because it damages our ability and willingness to distinguish reality of fantasy. In the worst case, it means that we'll accept anything.

The issue is "common sense and intuition" is what gets us anti-vaxxers, climate change denial, etc. As the saying goes, common sense isn't common.

I'd like to see steps taken to increase the independence of organizations like the CDC from the political world.

> The issue is "common sense and intuition" is what gets us anti-vaxxers, climate change denial, etc. As the saying goes, common sense isn't common.

I'm sorry, but yes it is.

First off, those are not common-sense issues. They're complex, and just because they make sense to the high IQ crowd on HN doesn't meant that they have any reflection on common sense. Just because anti-vaxxers say that vaccines are bad because "common sense" doesn't mean that it has anything to do with other than them being morons.

Common sense is that masks do something and aren't harmful to use. Common sense was right. Just because common sense and intuition are sometimes wrong doesn't mean that they're always wrong, which would be a fallacy. It doesn't even take common sense; an average joe can use basic cost-benefit analysis to decide whether to use a mask, if they are wondering whether a mask is a good idea. Trusting people(often pundits) with ulterior motives over a month after the fact would have turned out to be less advantageous.

This idea that we can't ever use our intuition because it's often wrong is dangerous. If we can't make any decision with intuition, including one as harmless as wearing a piece of paper over our faces, then we're slaves of the mind.

"Mercury is a deadly poison. It is common sense that having it in a vaccine is bad."

This makes perfect, intuitive, common sense to a significant portion of the population.

"...to a significant portion of the population."

Including health experts:

"...depending on the vaccine formulations used and the weight of the infant, some infants could have been exposed to cumulative levels of mercury during the first six months of life that exceeded EPA recommended guidelines for safe intake of methylmercury. As a precautionary measure, the Public Health Service (including FDA, National Institutes of Health [NIH], Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] and Health Resources and Services Administration [HRSA]) and the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a Joint Statement, urging vaccine manufacturers to reduce or eliminate thimerosal in vaccines as soon as possible. The U.S. Public Health Service agencies have collaborated with various investigators to initiate further studies to better understand any possible health effects from exposure to thimerosal in vaccines."

https://www.fda.gov/vaccines-blood-biologics/vaccines/thimer...

To this day thimerosal is not included in childhood vaccines, except for some flu shot formulations.

> Data reviewed did not demonstrate convincing evidence of toxicity from doses of thimerosal used in vaccines. In case reports of accidental high-dose exposures in humans to thimerosal or ethyl mercury toxicity was demonstrated only at exposures that were 100 or 1000 times that found in vaccines.

They could just as easily say, "Data reviewed did not demonstrate convincing evidence of safety from doses of thimerosal used in vaccines."

Placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials have never been completed to evaluate the safety of thimerosal. Partly because it would be unethical to inject a known toxin into people to determine it's safety.

If these trials had been done, and health authorities were convinced it was safe, they would allow thimerosal in vaccines because it is a huge cost saver. But instead, through the actions they took, they made it clear it is not worth the risk.

As an environmental engineer I've witnessed this tactic over and over. Authorities claim there is no evidence of danger, but remove the toxin anyways, because they know it's danger is plausible, and the funding and time isn't there to prove it one way or the other. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It's not like they are going to say, "we think we may have poisoned people, so we're removing this toxin." That's a great way to destroy your livelihood, reputation, and invite prosecution.

> Placebo-controlled, double-blind clinical trials have never been completed to evaluate the safety of thimerosal. Partly because it would be unethical to inject a known toxin into people to determine it's safety.

The safety of thimerosal is entirely possible to evaluate. It was in a bunch of childhood vaccines; it now is not. Has there been any demonstrable difference?

> But instead, through the actions they took, they made it clear it is not worth the risk.

Not necessarily. Could just not be worth the fight with the anti-vaxxers spreading bullshit about it. See also: Subway ditching azodicarbonamide because some blogger started a scaremongering movement around it.

"The safety of thimerosal is entirely possible to evaluate. It was in a bunch of childhood vaccines; it now is not. Has there been any demonstrable difference?"

If you don't believe that proper clinical trials are important to evaluate safety then there's not much more I can say. Epidemiological studies are rife with problems and the data can be manipulated to claim almost anything you want.

"Not necessarily. Could just not be worth the fight with the anti-vaxxers spreading bullshit about it. See also: Subway ditching azodicarbonamide because some blogger started a scaremongering movement around it."

Good point, but mercury is one of the most toxic substances known to man, does not break down, and is scientifically proven to bio-accumulate in mammalian tissues and never leave. It was also injected directly into the body, bypassing all the normal biological defenses a compound must go through before entering tissues. Furthermore, people can chose to not eat Subway without consequence. If vaccines had thimerosal in them again, it would be unavoidable without major life changes and being forcibly removed from large swaths of civil society. A consequence so severe necessitates a more proof than just saying you think mercury is safe in small doses with zero supporting concrete evidence.

Thimerosal was removed around 2001, well before the anti-vaxxer movement had enough influence to matter.

Your feelings and weak suppositions about thimerosal in vaccines are not science, and rather just indicate that you want to believe what you want to believe without presenting any concrete evidence.

Explain the "use soap and water" meme then.

We know hand sanitizer can be carried in our pockets and easily and immediately used when we are at risk.

Once again experts lied rather than getting distilleries and other factories to ramp up production.

That one's a bit of misunderstanding on how it got conveyed.

Soap and water is better than hand sanitizer. If you have access to it, it should be preferentially used. Sanitizer is great for "I just got to the car after grocery shopping".

Gloves when shopping would be even better.

As long as not taken from shop to shop.

How are gloves without sanitizer a good idea? You’re just going to rub the virus all over your possessions.

3M was shipping masks overseas until yesterday. Some people were buying out places like HomeDepot and Costco and selling them at huge markup. It's not "their" fault these independent agents behave this way. Culpability can be scrounged up, if it must, to the extent that previous administrations ignored their own experts warnings:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-03-20/disaster-f...

If you operationally define "good" as "fewer dead people" then reserving what masks there are for healthcare workers and first responders is a "good" because they are society's agents that can save people from death.

Not enough masks? Doctors nurses first on the lifeboat folks. That's just the way it is.

Sure, telling people not to buy them is a poor substitute for what ought to be individual conscience. How is the fact that such a substitute has to be sought "their" fault ?

We need experts.

But we also need to use our brain.

Even when trying to use my brain, I have troubles understanding how droplets can distinguish the direction of passing through a face mask, i.e., how my face mask can help protect others from my droplets, but how it cannot protect me from other people's droplets.

Well, I do understand that if the holes are too large, it will not be a 100% protection, but I do not really understand how the direction would matter.

That said, preventing a run on masks is important if you don't have enough, because some people need masks more urgently than others. I am convinved that in order to prevent a run on masks, you cannot just tell people the truth, but you need to lie to them, because many (or most) people will still get a mask if they know it is actually somewhat helpful.

Part of the answer is that we generally only "spray" particles from our mouths, but we can receive particles containing the virus through any mucus membrane, specifically our eyes. That's why medical professionals are supposed to wear goggles.

> I have troubles understanding how droplets can distinguish the direction of passing through a face mask, i.e., how my face mask can help protect others from my droplets, but how it cannot protect me from other people's droplets.

Masks don't necessarily completely stop all the droplets, but the ones they let through are slowed down, which means they fall to earth at a much shorter distance than unimpeded ones.

Incoming droplets that doesn't matter all that much - they only need to go a few millimeters to reach your face. Outgoing droplets, though, need to go six feet before they hit someone if you're practicing proper distancing.

"Common sense" and "intuition" is what let people look at the early stages of an exponential curve and say "this won't be a big deal". These things are no substitute for expertise.

And I don't recall anyone saying face masks were useless when worn by people who were already ill.

> And I don't recall anyone saying face masks were useless when worn by people who were already ill.

They were, however, saying you don't need to wear it if you don't have symptoms, despite clear evidence of asymptomatic transmission.

> "Common sense" and "intuition" is what let people look at the early stages of an exponential curve and say "this won't be a big deal".

No, they actually aren't. The "this won't be a big deal" response resulted from a combination of conditioning(things were relatively safe for a long period of time), learned helplessness, and the MSM telling everyone that "it's just the flu". There were even pundits laughing at "crazy people" wearing masks for "just the flu".

You're right, nobody said that(that I'm aware of). What they did say was that masks weren't effective for people not showing symptoms(unless if you are caring for a sick person), which is wrong on multiple levels. Even if you aren't showing symptoms, you could be shedding the virus, which was known months ago, hence a mask would be appropriate even for someone who isn't sick. There's also no evidence that the virus and the droplets that carry them are exempt from the ability of any kind of mask to filter things out of the air. If a mask is only 25% effective against the virus, that still means the person wearing a mask is less likely to get sick.

All it takes for the common person to make the rational choice is a cost-benefit analysis. If the greatest cost of putting on a mask is that the mask does nothing and they are out a few bucks, then it's better to buy some masks ASAP and wait for a good reason not to wear them rather than letting their trust in authority gaslight them into believing the sky isn't blue.

I ran into someone with a finance degree who couldn't believe $0.01 doubled for thirty days wound up being over $5M. I had to show them an Excel spreadsheet of each day.

Exponential growth is hard for people to grasp.

And yet, it's the basis of a fable I heard as a kid in the 90s, where a girl tricks a ruler into giving her one grain of rice on the first day, two on the second, four on the third, doubling each day for a month. It almost induces a famine until she gifts it all back.