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Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

...the CDC was against mask use by the general public at first

And they too admitted to spreading FUD about masks, in the misguided belief that stopping average people from using masks would leave more masks for the health care providers.

That should reinforce the important point that we're dealing with unqualified, clown-show/amateur-hour political appointees in multiple levels of government, making critical decisions, at this point, a point in time, unlike most points, where leadership or it's lack matters.

And I know that FUD is just a long-standing acronym for "fear, uncertainty and doubt" and I too could just write that. But being so long-standing, the term not is only convenient but has come mean a particular kind of fear, uncertainty and doubt, that spread through a particular of public relations system.

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I wish they had treated the public like adults:

"Listen, we believe masks are effective but we don't have enough for medical personnel who need them right now so unless you absolutely need one please stay home, stay safe, and leave them to doctors, nurses, and other emergency personnel."

No misinformation and the vast majority of people would have complied.

Lying to everyone just cost them credibility and probably lives when this is all said and done.

"And, by the way, there is plenty of toilet paper." I bet that would have stopped the panic buying, too.

Always this talking point whenever anyone suggests they should tell the truth. What else should they lie to us about because the public supposedly won't react well?

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more the state lies, the less we listen to it, and the more we start looking out for ourselves, and disregarding the public good.

Government officials see us behaving like this, they assume we're too dumb and self-centered to do the right thing, so they attempt to manipulate us in order to get us to behave properly.

I don't think the public would've acted like adults though, but I don't think it would've changed anything either. Even with them saying that masks don't work, there was a mask shortage almost everywhere.

Then the worst case: Still a shortage and no misinformation (aka lying) to undo.

Still a major win over our current situation.

But the shortage would have been worse ...

How does a shortage get worse than "we're all out"?

The duration can differ. A shortage lasting a week is better than a shortage lasting months.

The claim here is that 1) CDC knew masks were effective but 2) decided to ignore that to preserve stocks.

For you to support claim 1 all you need to do is post links to the meta-analyses or randomised control trials that show the effectiveness of masks to prevent the spread of respiratory disease. There are lots of RCTs around mask wearing to prevent the spread of respiratory disease.

> And they too admitted to spreading FUD about masks

No they didn't. They haven't even changed their advice. Now they say "it may prevent the spread", they definitely don't say "it does prevent the spread", and they're still trying to preserve stocks of medical supplies.

> That should reinforce the important point that we're dealing with unqualified, clown-show/amateur-hour political appointees in multiple levels of government

In light of this point, how much would you trust a vaccine approved by the FDA or CDC?

I’ll wait until it’s approved by reputable non-US health care agencies. Especially if a vaccine magically arrives before November 3rd.

It's not clownish, just the opposite.

There was a severe shortage of N95's at the time, and if the public thought masks were important, there would have been an unprecedented run on PPE and the medical community would have had squat. Given that masks, particularly N95s are actually effective in a Healthcare environment ... it was the exactly the right call to make.

Get the masks to those who it will actually help, not the public for whom it will make a smaller difference.

Once production is ramped, or we have enough PPE, then it makes sense to have a pro-mask policy for the public.

From a communications perspective, it's obviously problematic, but in terms of equipment triage, it's highly rational and we actually want our leaders making these kinds of tough decisions.

The WHO and various governments should have been more efficient in their messaging however.

Yeah this is the part of the issue that my social media feed seems to attach to. They post comments from politicians and public figures (and medial professionals) saying early on that we shouldn't wear masks.

I'm sad that the original messages didn't come across as the nuanced issue that it is. Hospitals need the N95 stuff because they are exposed at high rates for a long time. Hospitals also educate their staff on proper protocol when wearing a mask so that people don't negate the effectiveness by wearing it wrong or touching their face after removing it.

The public isn't educated on proper mask wearing procedure. We don't know how to test that a mask fits properly. We don't have the same training to avoid cross contamination and poor mask hygiene. We don't understand the marginal benefits of masks and how it creates a false sense of security causing us to take more risks and spread the disease more quickly.

So at first, it makes perfect sense to funnel the best masks to the highest risk people and encourage "stay at home" (instead of "go outside with a mask") because it limits disease spread the most and protects the community.

I'm sad that it has turned in to "but they said masks did nothing" as an excuse to not wear them. It was never that they did nothing, it's that masks ALONE is not enough. Masks and proper behavior are necessary together.

> I'm sad that it has turned in to "but they said masks did nothing" as an excuse to not wear them. It was never that they did nothing, it's that masks ALONE is not enough. Masks and proper behavior are necessary together.

If you have the correct behaviour (hand washing, distancing) the mask provides you no benefit.

The only point to wearing a mask is if you are unable to maintain that distance, or you're stuck in a room with symptomatic people. But if you're doing that you're also provided with eye protection and gloves and a gown and copious water for handwashing, and you've probably been trained to don and doff the PPE correctly, and maybe you even have a person acting as a PPE spotter helping you put it on or take it off correctly.

No one is telling people to wear masks in their own house or sparse outdoor spaces, and in most cases there are no rules about outdoor spaces at all. Where the anti-maskers are causing a problem is refusing to wear masks indoors. Airflow can be very different in different buildings and the "6 feet apart" distancing rule is fairly arbitrary. It is implausible to actually properly distance in most indoor spaces. Hence masks are indeed important, even for those following the other "rules".

That aside, there is high overlap these days between people that say masks don't work and people that are completely negligent about distancing. It is a little ironic, as there were concerns that belief in masks would make people distance less due to sense of security.

I don't recall the exact CDC statement but I do recall quite a few of my (well educated, liberal, in some cases educated in public health) friends posting on Facebook that masks actually do more harm than good because "people touch their face more" or something. I remember thinking a lot of the messaging seemed wrong, but I also wasn't confident enough about it to start getting into social media fights about whether people should wear masks.

So there definitely was some narrative going around back in March that masks had an actively negative effect for an individual, not just that masks do nothing. That said, anyone who is an anti-masker at this point is being ridiculous.

> if the public thought masks were important, there would have been an unprecedented run on PPE and the medical community would have had squat

This still happened, though. All the stores that sold masks to consumers sold out, very rapidly, at the same time the Surgeon General was tweeting that they didn't work.

They should've ordered they be pulled from sale, not lied about their efficacy.

This is also incidentally the exact sort of thing the Defense Production Act is actually for. It could be invoked, used to give guaranteed quantity and price contracts to suppliers and avert the entire issue of supply runs.

Which likely wouldn't happen because it's not like someone who gets a profitable contract from the Federal government, retools their factory, isn't going to then try and squeeze as much production out of that as they can anyway.

> it was the exactly the right call to make.

Lying is never a defensible policy. If there was reasonable concern about run on PPE, then perhaps government order restricting or banning their sale to general population (like it was done by some governments) should be considered.

Lying is absolutely a defensible strategy when done for the greater good.

That doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a ton of clowny behavior from leadership.

It destroys public trust. What do you now say to people who refuse to wear masks? Do you say "I was lying to you earlier for the greater good, but now I'm not." Why should they ever listen to you again? You could be lying again.

This is exactly what was done here in Czech Republic - sale of high grade PPE to public was banned, massive PPE shipments ordered and home made masks made mandatory everywhere.

This seems to have been effective, as most of the restrictions have been lifted and we are back to sporadic local clusters by now.

"There was a severe shortage of N95's at the time, and if the public thought masks were important, there would have been an unprecedented run on PPE and the medical community would have had squat."

Uh, you what actually happened? There was been an unprecedented run on PPE and the medical community got squat. It's bizarre to have to recite headline news from two months ago ... doctors in NYC using garbage bags instead of real protection. Hand sanitizer unavailable. Nurses in hospital prohibited from using their own masks and not getting them from the hospitals. The Federal government hoarding PPEs for who knows what asinine reason.

Well I think you helped to prove my point.

As I said, there was excess demand for PPE, but by and large, most medical staff did have access.

That there were some doctors who were unable, means that obviously there was some shortage.

But Dr. Fauci and the WHO had of indicated that 'every American should wear a mask' - then all doctors would have been wearing garbage bags through the entire affair.

The 'excess demand' from natural concern was bad enough, but 350 Million Americans clamouring for N95's would have wiped out any hope of keeping the medical staff in place.

It was a rational decision given the risks and unknowns: We need to get PPE to doctors because the value to the general public is limited.

A tough and difficult decision at the time, but they did the right thing.

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