Use of Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow the Spread of Covid-19 | Hacker News Reader

Use of Cloth Face Coverings to Help Slow the Spread of Covid-19

cdc.gov

52 pointsseltzered_6 comments

This is the official CDC page on cloth face masks that I believe got put up yesterday or today. Over the past couple weeks there have been a number of HN discussions on this topic, many flagged outright or removed from front page:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22737062

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22733249

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22706216

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22760634

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22756773

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22602592

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22756773

Why were there flagged or removed? Genuinely curious.

I think some may have lacked the correct nuances in their advice, or led people to think they need to buy N95 respirators at a time when doctors & first responders need them.

The last post I saw on this topic was horrible with a bunch of people with, I'm guessing, no expertise and no opinion on the topic a month ago certain that the CDC had made an epic mistake. My sense is that coronavirus discussions in general have been getting more strongly worded as people are getting more worried or personally impacted and the topics have already been discussed at length. Combine that with most news media being mostly coronavirus news these days and I think many people would prefer that HN be mostly coronavirus-free.

That’s interesting. Personally my primary source of news is HN and generally I find the discussions helpful. Even (or particularly) in polarized cases with varying opinions, I can kinda get that it’s not simple or clear yet.

I also find many of the discussions helpful, however when the language used becomes particularly charged it is harder to pick out the helpful parts of the discussion and it discourages many people from contributing. Even if it is still helpful to have one such discussion, repeating the same arguments in multiple discussions per day is not helpful. At least to me, it makes sense to try to focus discussions on the most interesting articles every few days and not have running coronavirus discussions every day.

If you are interested in the medical side of coronavirus I happened to find the emcrit.org site recently. I don't know much about them but you can read discussions from actual doctors about the medical side of treating coronavirus and some of the different treatment approaches they are using (you will need to know or learn some medical terminology). E.g. they discussed how "awake prone" seems to be helpful, although a doctor with a fairly bad case added that for him sitting up (even at night) seems to be the most helpful.

https://emcrit.org/

The other place I have been checking regularly is Trevor Bedford's (of the Seattle Flu Project) twitter account where he has posted some interesting threads on genetic sequencing of the virus and what it reveals about how it is spreading.

https://twitter.com/trvrb

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