Doctors are tweeting about coronavirus to make facts go viral | Hacker News Reader

Doctors are tweeting about coronavirus to make facts go viral

wsj.com

74 pointsericzawo69 comments

How about tweeting these,

1. The virus mostly spreads through BREATHING/TALKING/COUGHING.

2. 80% of infections come from FRIENDS/FAMILY. Stop going to meet them unnecessarily and spending hours together indoors.

3. Masks mostly don't help you, they help the people AROUND you.

I'd say the average person would be much better prepared against the virus with these three facts.

Citation needed. :)

Yeah, unfortunately point #3 makes people think they shouldn't wear masks.

I was joking to a friend that the correct "American" response to COVID-19 is legal liability for getting others sick, but alas, that requires effective contact tracing.

Even more American would be to fine/arrest people caught without a mask.

That's the East Asian response. A law like that would probably get dragged through the courts in America with the rest of the media circus before being struck down as government overreach. As the original poster said, legal liability between private individuals with lots of court fees is very American.

Definitely see it being dragged through the courts. But it'd be the most tolerable enforcement mechanism to the wealthy elite who wouldn't mind just eating a fine.

The East Asian solution takes it one step further with mass surveillance.

There's lots of news about people getting manhandled by police because they don't have a mask on.

Of course, in wealthier areas, there are stories about the police handing out masks to people that aren't wearing them.

So I think we are handling it in a very US way.

I don't think this works from a European perspective, at least based on the country I live in where the opposite seems more true. I guess it might make sense compared to some east Asian countries as another commenter noted.

Even more American would be to fine/arrest poor people caught without a mask.

FTFY.

Oh dear I might be starting to see symptoms of this thing after a neighbor coughed in my space the other day (unsure if they had it). Now I’m wondering if that’s enough to sue them for endangering me and potentially make me miss work time..

Hope you will be alright. Sadly, you wouldn't be the first to be assaulted with SARS-CoV2 at work. See for example the tragic story of a train ticket worker who died two weeks after being spat at in London Victoria station. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-52616071

Sounds a little pre-meditated, if you're that worried why don't you go get tested :) Also I think you would be hard pressed to isolate where your infection originated if you were positive - so you might not have the best luck with suing your co-worker. Also that just sounds a little nuts.

I think we should have a national standard "Covid Danger Rating System," like the Fire Danger Rating system. Track it like the weather. Have the local weather man discuss that regions current Covid Risk rating and what it means. Do it every time the weather is broadcast.

Add to that, let's make being caught spreading Covid by not following the current ratings recommendation a punishable offense. That way it's not illegal to not wear a mask, or not social distance, but if we're at Covid-Risk 5, and an outbreak is traced back to your negligence, you'd be fined, jailed, something. Same way you'd be punished for being caught starting a wild fire with a campfire during burn ban. We wouldn't even need perfect contact tracing for this to work. The majority of people will follow the recommendation for social good, and others will for the threat of possible punishment. It's not perfect but a unified plan that everyone understands, plus some teeth for enforcing it would go a long way.

This is a good way to get people to hide their infections and make stopping spread harder.

How so? There’d be no penalty for spreading covid. The penalty would come if you spread it by willfully ignoring the current guidelines.

Those who don't follow guidelines are also likely to not want to get in trouble.

I think the same problem happens with forest fires...

And #2 would be cited as a reason to open everything back up immediately.

Or is it friends and family like how 70% of auto crashes happen within 10 miles of home simply because that's where you drive most often?

I think this might be correct, especially during a lockdown, those are the people most people see.

Whether you get infected or not is a game of chance. There are a lot of factors affecting the probability:

* Being indoors during contact (increases)

* Duration of contact (every minute increases)

* Physical distance between contacts (every meter decreases)

* Amount of contacts (every person increases)

* Wearing masks (decreases)

* Washing hands (decreases)

* Coughing, speaking, singing during contacts (increases)

Meeting people close to you ticks basically every probability-increasing checkbox in the list.

Don't forget presence of pre-existant antibodies in the person. (decreases)

As others have pointed out, #3 might dampen, not encourage, mask wearing. How about "Masks aren't just for you, but for the people AROUND you"?

Which is why many East Asian countries have big PR campaigns that focus on how stylish cotton masks are and how they're "more effective" than medical masks*

*more effective at slowing spread through the population, not more effective protection

The opposite reaction was one surprising thing when masks came around. A groups of people getting angry on cool looking masks like "mask is not a fashion statement".

I think that was just sour grapes from the people who didn't have cool stylish masks.

"3. Masks mostly don't help you, they help the people AROUND you."

This is false. A more accurate statement would be, "masks help".

You ideally want to on the one hand encourage mask wearing, but on the other downplay potential benefits to the wearer (especially as these remain controversial at best). Masks sometimes give people a false sense of security, and they change their behaviour.

Wearing a mask is probably the most uncontroversial effective thing you can do to decrease your risk right up there with washing your hands. If they didn't work then healthcare workers wouldn't be upset about the shortages.

Spreading false information about masks because you feel like the truth has a negative impact on other behaviors or that people might not use them correctly isn't right. That is the kind of behavior that leads to people's mistrust in experts and the media.

Yeah the whole noble lie thing is pernicious because even really stupid people are often good at telling when people are lying to them. Problem is once people realize you're lying they have no good way of telling what the truth is.

So you just fucked them.

Absolutely, and the really stupid thing about the whole "masks don't help" lie is the same sources saying in one breath that there are masks shortages at hospitals and in the next that they don't help. Talk about a credibility killer.

>If they didn't work then healthcare workers wouldn't be upset about the shortages.

looks like a slew of hands a bit. Public mask wearing is about any masks/face covering/etc. while healthcare workers upset about shortage of medical grade masks.

Santa Clara health department specifically discourages public from using medical grade masks to alleviate the shortage for healthcare workers.

https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/learn-what-to-do....

"Face coverings should not be surgical or medical masks, which are in short supply and urgently needed by healthcare workers. Instead, face coverings such as bandanas, scarfs, or home-sewn fabric coverings should be used."

Masks made from commonly available fabrics were found to have similar filtration efficiency to N95 certified masks.

[0] https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c03252

you need to tell that to those picky Canadians (https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/n95-masks-rejected-montreal...), healthcare workers and everybody else who wants N95.

> This is false. A more accurate statement would be, "masks help".

Actually, the accurate statement would be "Masks may help protect you a little bit, but they're much better preventing you from spreading the virus to others."

The best production you can have is if those around you are conscientious, and you are likewise.

Has there been any research into the extent that masks do or don't result in modified behavior, not directly related to the mask? For example, if you go out and most people are wearing masks, it may serve to remind you to wash your hands when you reach your destination, to not linger unnecessarily, etc.

Masks help me quite a LOT to help remind me to not touch my face until after I get home and wash my hands!

With regards to #3 among the more libertarian minded: if we all where masks it's not only a show of spontaneous order to slow the spread (as it has in HK and other Asian countries), it will limit the need for the more draconian governmental measures.

#3 Yes but not so much the ones with valves. The ones with valves are better for the wearer.

Wear protective glasses as eyes are another vector.

Avoid using public restrooms as that’s another vector though apparently the virality is reduced.

Use sanitizer after touching anything that’s not under your control.

How does #3 help when many Americans clearly prioritize themselves over other people?

> 3. Masks mostly don't help you, they help the people AROUND you.

False. Masks help you. They don't stop all the viral particles from reaching you, but they stop some. If your initial viral load is smaller, it may make the difference between dead and alive, or between 5 days in bed and 3 days in bed.

Please stop spreading this piece of misinformation.

I said mostly. Yes basic surgical/cloth masks do protect the wearer a small bit, but the air you inhale has to come from somewhere, and with a surgical mask that air is not filtered.

How sad... I just realized my initial gut reaction to seeing any news headline with the word "Fact" in it has become to assume it has a political angle.

More often than not, "Fact" is just a synonym for some political opinion.

How far have we fallen? Our news outlets are more often than not just Panic Porn and Political Hit Jobs... anything except actual unvarnished, unspun, unpoliticized raw news.

In fairness to the news media, it’s effectively mandatory to process the data, the facts, for presentation, so everything is “spun” to some degree.

A lot of news is just factual information such as weather events, earthquakes, sports scores, or who won an election. Spin is more about filling time and attracting eyeballs.

Consider, if you’re summarizing what news events where actually relevant to you over the last month, how long would it take?

Process and make more easily consumable? Sure, I don't have all day to catch up on happenings and events.

But to selectively edit videos, leave out details deliberately, loaded word choices ("blasts", "destroys", "slaps back"), deliberate misuse of words to instill a sense of credibility ("fact", "expert", "scientist"), and so much more?

That's more than just processing the data... that's deliberate manipulation.

In entertainment news media, Fact now means opinion, Expert now means political shill, and Scientist means random person with an opinion.

I often wonder how much entertainment news impacts politician’s decision making. I have to assume that they consider what the major news entertainment companies will say about bills they author and support or don’t. in some ways, they are not just reporting, but likely influencing.

> my initial gut reaction to seeing any news headline with the word "Fact" in it has become to assume it has a political angle.

That's not a problem with the headline, it's a problem with your state of mind. There are actual facts at play here, and real experts with good intentions.

If you think the whole world is partisan politics and facts don't matter, good for you, but please don't pollute the information pool for the rest of us.

You're being unfair to OP.

It's perfectly reasonable to respect facts, and question the motives of profit driven information outlets when they claim to broadcast them.

There's a lot of misinformation being spread.

Sure, but that’s not what he did. He literally saw the word “fact” and decided he didn’t like what was going to come next. That’s downright medieval.

I'm reading between the lines just a tad, but I think a more generous interpretation is that they noticed they have an unfortunately strong mental association between the following 2 things:

1. Online headline containing prominent usage of the word "fact" while also hinting at some sort of controversy

2. Misleading article, deceptive spin, bullshit, etc.

I don't think I have quite as strong an association, but I can definitely sympathize with this.

fact check, correct your thinking!

You can apply evolution and meme models to it.

Every piece of info on Twitter is an idea fighting for survival.

You'd think having 'fact' as a property of a tweet would be beneficial. But it's the opposite- the truth is often unpleasant and people don't want to hear it.

This gives 'factual' tweets a survival disadvantage on Twitter. If a fake tweet makes people 'happy' (by way of confirming their innate belief), by evolution they'd out-compete other tweets.

It's not just Twitter, it also includes HN and any other system that encourages crowd-sourced curation.

Med twitter is a big thing. It's mostly doctors talking to doctors. It's almost replacing conferences and journals, and the primary way info about sars-cov-2 has been spread, and excellent for critical review of all the preprints that have also gained "virality." Would be nice if it weren't on twitter though. An old style forum would be much better, or even something like reddit, though I suspect one day these people posting "tweetorials" will regret putting all this info onto someone else's platform rather than blog posts etc.

Doctors created this platform for emergency medicine knowledge sharing, https://rebelem.com/about-us/

It can't be done, because that's not how viral memes work.

Facts are boring and require nuance. Things go viral because they're outrageous, surprising, or (my favorite) wrong enough that people make responses, which in turn are wrong enough...et voila: Viral.

Then maybe we start them off with "now listen here you fucking idiots!"? The response rate seems to go up when there's anger involved.

Unfortunately that's a lot of characters for twitter.

https://archive.md/AUyku

Doctors try to make facts publicly available. The Wall Street Journal puts them behind a paywall.

> Doctors try to make facts publicly available. The Wall Street Journal puts them behind a paywall.

Doctors try to get paid for their work. The Wall Street Journal (and its contributors) try/tries to get paid for their work.

That's good and all, but this site is for people to discuss articles after reading them. You don't need to link to the article if the discussion is about the title.

Coronavirus coverage is free on WSJ.com like on most news sites https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/coronavirus-2020-05-15

And yet they still exist on twitter for free.

Facts by themselves aren’t political or have an agenda.

The decision to present certain facts, the other facts you compare those to, and the manner in which they are presented, however, invokes agendas and politics.

No matter how much people claim otherwise, doctors presenting facts have agendas. This includes Dr Fauci.

Is trying to protect as many people as possible an agenda? How about wanting to do one’s best in researching medicine? Or are agendas always sinister?

What’s your area of expertise? If someone asked you to give a talk about your area of expertise, what are some agendas you would choose from?

Or are you making the point that no human is 100% emotionally detached from their work?

If you ask Dr Fauci he’ll say let’s save as many lives as we can. Taken alone no one can argue with that.

His agenda is to save lives. Obvious.

So he will make as strong a case as he can to support the measures to save lives.

If you pay attention to him and only him it makes sense to lockdown until there is a cure or vaccine.

Now tell me, does that make sense for every single person? From age 10 to 100, rich, poor, healthy, sick, for several months or even a year+?

There are costs to Fauci’s agenda which he ignores because that’s not his job but also it doesn’t make sense for him to talk about the costs.

You think of an agenda as a bad thing but it’s not it’s just the thing someone wants to get done.

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