The Covid Science Wars
scientificamerican.com
scientificamerican.com
Reminds me of this blog post I read a while back: http://scott.wiersdorf.org/blarney/science
It's hard to disagree cordially and constructively when you perceive the "other side" as being uninformed, unenlightened, rude, or careless. We're really good at furnishing examples of such people which we generalize to represent the entire opposition.
I try and get over this by thinking what values other people have that might lead them to the conclusions that they do. I also try and think about what factors led them to the sets of information that they're working with. That has two effects: 1.) I'm less mad at them (usually), and 2.) I can understand how to talk to their concerns and worries, rather than just at them. I can't change other people, so I try and change myself.
I'm not saying I'm perfect at that—this doesn't always work as well as I'd like. What helps you to sympathize and communicate with others?
I try to
- Remember virtually no individual or group is 100% right or 100% incorrect about things which require interpretation or value judgements. Even people who I think are often terribly wrong can still occasionally be right about some topic.
- Consider sometimes people can reach a generally correct conclusion based on incorrect reasoning, interpretation or data. Conversely, sometimes people can reach substantially incorrect conclusions based on correct reasoning, interpretation or data.
- Not to let my feelings about a person or group's other positions influence my assessments about a position in a different domain.
- Be aware of the basis and degree of my own preconceived feelings and biases related to a topic.
- Remember that everyone is influenced to some degree by their personal experiences, context, knowledge and feelings, even if we're not aware of it.
- Ensure I fully understand the other person's position. Especially that I'm not making assumptions or drawing conclusions which may over-simplify, extend or 'extreme' what they're actually saying. I also try to imagine possible 'steelman' forms of their arguments which may be stronger, clearer or more nuanced than what they are saying.
- Separate assertions about objective facts from subjective interpretation or conclusions such as policy. Especially that future outcomes cannot be objective facts because they haven't happened.
- Apply extra charitable interpretation in areas where I may have strong pre-held notions.
- Stay open-minded and ask clarifying questions in a reasonable and neutral tone.
- Focus my responses on the most key elements of the arguments actually being made versus the person, style, tone or my feelings.
I'm worried this one will get lost in amongst all the other good points. Human society has numerous mechanisms (traditions and ethics being the big ones, but also rules and stories) that are there to guide people to make good decisions even if they can't explain why they are good.
Everyone knows lying is bad, for example. But in my experience the behaviour of a lot of people shows they don't actually understand why - I suspect they think it is bad because they fear punishment more than because they understand global optimum equilibriums. It is remarkably common for good ideas to be floating around that people struggle to justify.
> At first sight we might imagine that knowledge could be defined as "true belief." When what we believe is true, it might be supposed that we had achieved a knowledge of what we believe. But this would not accord with the way in which the word is commonly used. To take a very trivial instance: If a man believes that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, he believes what is true, since the late Prime Minister was Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman. But if he believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be thought to constitute knowledge. If a newspaper, by an intelligent anticipation, announces the result of a battle before any telegram giving the result has been received, it may by good fortune announce what afterwards turns out to be the right result, and it may produce belief in some of its less experienced readers. But in spite of the truth of their belief, they cannot be said to have knowledge. Thus it is clear that a true belief is not knowledge when it is deduced from a false belief.
The idea that uncertainty about COVID reduced the need for a lockdown in March April when we knew that China was scared enough of the virus that it shut down Wuhan completely, and Italy was seeing an epic disaster, is completely backwards. The uncertainty at that point was MORE reason to lock down, and use fiscal and monetary tools to handle the economic effects which we did know about and could predict and defend from, until we got a better understanding of the virus.
Sweden, once again, is very instructive. Their PHA’s position was to basically protect the eldest by insisting that anyone showing symptoms stay home and not go to care homes to work or visit. But our complete lack of knowledge meant that Tegnells did not know that asymptomatic carriers ans transmission existed, which essentially made a mockery of this plan and wrecked any hope of Sweden handling the pandemic well.
The idea that just because there are no proven studies that show what works and what doesn’t means we don’t do anything is beyond stupid. A lack of confirmed evidence means we need to take actions based on the slight evidence we do have, while weighing the cost of those actions to individuals and society, and whether those costs can be mitigated or not.
So, for example, requiring masks once we had a suspicion that it was spread via aerosols and droplets as opposed to fomites, which was the initial understanding, meant that mandating masks was a no brainer. Worst case scenario if you’re wrong is that people are out $20-$30 each, but you will more than make that up in the reduced spread of other diseases that we do know masks would help with, such as the flu, which has basically been non existent this year thanks to COVID measures.
Lockdowns were obviously more drastic, and the complete lack of knowledge and disasters unfolding in Wuhan (remember China constructing 2-3 hospitals in days to handle what happened there) and Italy, and uncontrolled rise of cases in other parts of Europe and the US meant a lockdown was almost necessary.
Once we did find out more about the virus, once we got testing under control, and now that doctors understand treatments better leading to a much lower death rate, a full lockdown like in spring does not appear necessary. Distancing and mask wearing and gathering outdoors seem sufficient to control it. When people do not follow this leading to a spike in cases, temporary, localized, soft lockdowns make sense until we get people to follow this.
The contrarians in Sweden and the Great Barrington Deckaration (which is hilariously not scientific at all, and is basically completely wrong at this point) are not holding a contrary scientific viewpoint. They are holding apolitical viewpoint which they are promoting with the absence of science.
Sweden handled the pandemic better than anyone. Life went on as close to normal as any country, and their number of deaths seems pretty average for a European country. The only mistake they made was sending elderly to care homes which ended up accounting for over 50% of the deaths (a mistake made by many countries).
> The contrarians in Sweden and the Great Barrington Deckaration (which is hilariously not scientific at all, and is basically completely wrong at this point) are not holding a contrary scientific viewpoint.
There is very little scientific evidence about lockdowns, or (non n95) masks or any of the other measures we are being forced into. Everyone basically just copied what China were doing. Very scientific. (And listened to Neil Ferguson who's models predictions have been out by an order of magnitude) .
> What helps you to sympathize and communicate with others?
You and others have suggested good ideas. Another that I find useful is to always give something. It doesn’t have to be falsely giving in on a fact. It can be “Y’know I was thinking the exact same thing then I ran into this paper!” or “This is interesting, I hadn’t thought of it this way. And...”
I think the tiniest, almost inconsequential gift and saving of face that that represents can totally change the tone of a conversation
Just my two cents
Never compromising is romanticized heavily in our culture. However, being willing to make concessions, get rid of personal pride in the interest of understanding, etc. is surer evidence of strength and personal fortitude than a tough-and-gruff, unyielding stance. There are precious few arenas in life where never compromising is actually the right course of action imo. Most of the time we're just too proud to make a concession.
The fact is that if mask-wearing and lockdowns prevent the spread of this virus, they'll work for the flu too. If there is a moral imperative to use these methods for COVID, why would there not also be a moral imperative to use them for the flu?
Where do you draw the line?
https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/cbn/2005/cbnreport_1...
We are doing these so that politicians can be seen to be "doing something". Not because there is any evidence that they work or are effective
Same with the number of deaths. 65,000 in a really bad flu season in the US with hundreds of millions exposed to it, and Covid already has exceed that with only about 20% exposed to the virus.
I'm asking where we draw the line. Yes the flu is less severe than COVID-19. The question is not which is worse. It is how many lives do we need to save with these measures in order to make it "worth it"? Who determines that? How do we determine that?
We apparently decided it is worth it for COVID-19. Ok, but then why not for the flu. It kills people too, just not as many. What about something in between the flu in COVID in terms of lethality?
Literally because of "just not as many" part. Yes, real world policies do some cold calculations about "how many people die" and have arbitrary lines. Arbitrary lines are actually ok. Better then arbitrary line on either "never ever" or "totally all the time" extreme. Also, we literally close schools when flu get out of control in some area - for a week or so and that is enough for flu to get under control. There is also huge push for flu vaccines each year. It is not true that no flu management is done, there is a lot of flu management going on.
Like, I dont know whether it is consequences of two party system, but the whole "we either lock everything for every reason or never nothing at all" and "we cant possibly think in probabilities and death rates and nuance" is frankly, idiotic.
Appendicitis? Stroke? Car accident? Sorry, the hospital is full of COVID patients, we can't take you in. Go home, lie down, see if it gets better.
This is the scenario we're trying to avoid. If the flu would do that, we'd have lockdowns for it too.
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2018/01/24/Hospitals-overwhe...
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-flu-demand-2018...
https://www.dispatchhealth.com/blog/ers-are-overwhelmed-with...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/overwhelmed-by-flu-cases-some-e...
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/12/health/flu-surveillance-c...
In Italy and Spain, aged care centres were abandoned by Eastern European workers fleeing the country before border closure, leaving residents ill cared for.
In New York, symptomatic patients were ordered back into aged care homes to free up hospital space.
These conditions would not have occurred without hysteria and excessive fear.
COVID in Sweden is about as deadly as the 2009 flu wave: https://swprs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/sweden-monthly-...
Sweden is on track for an annual number of deaths in 2020 mostly the same as prior years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/525353/sweden-number-of-...
Sweden, through early November, has as many deaths as it has had in its worst entire years before. And Swedens death numbers increase beyond the current year, as they attribute more deaths towards the previous year in the beginning of a year.
Sweden is on track to have 10-20% more deaths than normal.
They do it just isn't covered as much as anything covid related.
https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patie...
Do masks help? Do they reduce immunity by eliminating some light contacts? Do they allow to transfer the virus without being infected? For sure you wouldn't like to have doctors (treating e.g. Ebola patients) go shopping and exhaling through their contaminated masks.
Is there any epidemiological evidence that masks helped? Data using "reporting date" often shows trend changes around mask measures. Taking a look at "date of death" data those trend changes usually are gone. Why is so little "date of death" data available?
Where do we draw the line? As with most complex things, it requires a careful balance of trade-offs. And, when there’s a lot of uncertainty and risk, it’s good to be cautious at first.
It's very hard to dissent against the current narrative because any dissent can easily be framed as "killing people". I blame technology for our current predicament. If we didn't have computers and a global internet, there's no way we would be shutting down everything. We might be wearing masks and washing hands, but I would bet life would be largely the same.
But because technology dangled the carrot of "we can save lives by doing everything virtually with computers" we are charging down that path optimizing for lives saved without giving fair consideration to other side effects of that (loneliness, depression, suicide, homelessness, civil unrest, economy). In some ways, taking a one time "excess deaths" hit as we have done with past pandemics does have measurable benefits in other ways, but you'll get shouted out of the room if you bring up that position even as a hypothetical.
I can't find any instance of the scientific community encouraging permanent lockdowns.
The stats I've seen seem to indicate that COVID has behaved (in terms of waning) more seasonally than in response to lockdowns.
For example Sweden, who didn't have lockdowns anything like what we've seen in other countries, have a curve[1] that tapered off too. At deaths per capita, they're lower than UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, and many more.
You can see normal flu seasons and the out-of-season huge spike. Then you can see subsequent bumps on a per-country basis. Some countries had multiple spikes and lockdowns etc.
These charts tell exactly the story I'm telling. The peaks and troughs appear at the same time for countries with strict lockdowns as for those with less strict / non-existent lockdowns.
This isn't going to correlate to one thing. The seasonal impact is real, but that doesn't mean lockdowns don't work.
You would also expect to get no (average) excess mortality for the year if you just killed off the frail earlier than normal. This is not the case, excess mortality just returned to normal levels. You would need either a spike in the other direction or a step change down to fit with your theory.
You can track the yearly excess mortality data here for a few countries.
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking...
Which is not difficult because you picked the worst of the worst to compare them with. Compare them with other nordic countries like Norway or especially Finland and Sweden suddenly looks like a complete failure.
Keep an eye out.
Most curves look a lot like an explosion that burns out locally too fast to sustain a continuous fire. This could lead to some kind of seasonal dynamics without external factors.
One exception is maybe Argentina. Since the beginning it was more like a continuous burning fire - until they stopped. What did they do?
This reminds me of the French economist Frederic Bastiat's essay "That which is seen, and that which is not seen". The media (tv, newspapers and internet) were all hyper-focused on the number of deaths (initially) and later number of cases but always failed to take into account secondary consequences like those you mention.
Link to Bastiat's essay: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Essays_on_Political_Economy/T...
And even if the media didn’t, politicians did. To the point that nearly every country in the world has passed economic and financial aid measures that probably exceed anything they’ve done in the past, certainly during peacetime, and globally the world has put more resources into mitigating the second order effects through all sorts of programs than it almost certainly ever has before.
This whole narrative about how dissenters are not heard, when they are parroted the loudest is ridiculous. Even the Scientific A,Eric an article puts the great barrington declaration, with absolutely no scientific backing, with 0 footnotes and references, and a signee list that is completely unvetted, on equal footing with the John Snow memo which has vetted every signee, has references to actual papers littered through it to the point that the text in footnotes probably exceed the entire scientific content of the GBD, if not the entire GBD itself.
In general though, there has been a huge variety of policy responses across the globe and over time, so I'm not sure what you mean be 'we' 'shutting everything down'. My state came closest to shutting everything down for a month or so in the spring, but there has been a constant effort since then to adjust policy to balance health risks and economic/social pain. Italy had a super hard lockdown. South Dakota isn't even wearing masks.
My take on this is that, without the internet, we would (1) either still choose to lock down and cause much greater economic harm[^1], or (2) not choose to lock down and lose more lives. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that we still need to perform a cost–benefit analysis before going into lockdowns. But the internet has lowered the "cost" part of this analysis, by allowing most people to continue to work during lockdowns.
[^1] Note that during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, there were also lockdowns: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-citie...
Every dissent winds up getting framed this way. The numbers don't matter. The way you win is by having "your side" be the side who's policy kills people less directly. When you take it to extremes like "make everyone do backbreaking labor and all the health problems that comes with that to save a few dozen kids with cancer" the absurdity becomes obvious. It's maddening but this is the nature of a lot of arguments we have in society today. For example you have Safety Sally wanting to do something that will crush an industry in order to save a few dozen workplace injuries. How many years of life will be lost from all those people's reduced standard of living? Hard to tell. But Safety Sally always wins because she can argue that anyone arguing against her policy is killing people more directly, numbers be damned. Sometimes (e.g. coal industry) the numbers do work out in her favor. Often times it's hard to tell and then you get into arguments about who's analysis is more accurate
Sad days
To put some examples in the current context: The speed at which medical facilities are researching this virus has never been seen before in the history of mankind, and many of the findings are shreding light on understanding how viruses work (not only this one), including knowledge for when (_not if_) a virus much stronger and infectious that coronavirus pays us a visit.
Why guess, we have The spanish flu to compare to. There was no internet then. There was however significant restrictions on people to control it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu#Responses
Correlation doesn't imply causation, but lack of correlation is pretty strong evidence for lack of causation.
Really? Do some digging into historical pandemics. City entrances would be boarded up. Villages might be "shut" and their people would literally starve to death if the they could not sustain themselves. Harbor chains were raised against suspected plague ships. Innocent people were confined to pest hospitals, even exiled to dedicated colonies on remote islands. Londoners once feared being boarded up in their own houses should they get ill. The pre-computer past was full of much more draconean efforts than anything COVID-19 has brought us.
And for all the horrors of being locked indoors with covid, just spend a few minutes reading about the kids polio trapped inside iron lungs. That was within living memory.
If a pathogen with identical risks and outcomes struck today, I guarantee government restrictions would be greater than in the past.
It's probably more apt to state that the 1918 Pandemic was worse than the 2019/2020/2021 Pandemic - probably true. Virus to virus? Probably not.
The lower bound on Spanish flu's IFR is 3%. Covid's IFR is around 1%, and almost all of that is in old and sick people. Spanish flu killed far more at far younger ages. Had covid hit a century ago, its IFR would likely be lower because those hit worst by the covid (the old and sick) would have already died of something else.
Again, Spanish flu infected 1/3rd of the world and killed at least 1% of the world population. It was the last time in history that human population declined over a year. Even in 3rd world countries, covid can't approach that level of lethality.
I'm not trying to imply that Spanish Flu was not a killer - my home country of India suffered ~ 13 millions deaths. Yet the policies of the Colonial Administration also made a bad situation much worse. My suspicion is that given those circumstances, COVID would be just as bad, if not worse. At this point we can only speculate.
You know what, I call bullshit on this.
It’s pretty easy to argue in favour of or against specific measures when done in good faith and with evidence. What it’s hard to do is engage in this sort of shallow middlebrow meta-argument.
The black plague -the biggest one we have ever gotten as far as we know- lasted 7 years, I don't think that constitutes under any definition a "one time 'excess deaths' hit"; also I'm pretty sure that given 50% of the population died nobody was free from depression (or loneliness/suicide for that matter) given that in all likelihood half of the people you knew had died when it ended.
The government even has programs trying to encourage people to go out eating and to travel within the country.
Numbers are very low compared to similar populations elsewhere including deaths so we're not killing people here. At least not yet. They are at their highest rate yet but it's still 1/100th of similar populations in the west.
Americans bring up examples of countries with 10X the discipline, like America would have an infection rate closer to Japan if we _had not_ locked down.
It's fucking ridiculous.
This is a false dichotomy. Look at the countries that acted quickly and had cooperation from everyone - they have many fewer deaths, and the impact of the pandemic has been much, much less.
We are only in this position we are in because people did not want to cooperate from the start. This attempt to blame the side effects on people advocating for masks is not an accurate depiction of reality. If people had done the right thing from the beginning, we wouldn't be in the predicament.
We also know that reducing contacts reduces the transmission of diseases like COVID-19. We might have no hard data on how well each measure works, but we know that reducing contacts does work in general.
The part I find problematic are the very generic "just protect the vulnerable populations" calls. I mean that would be a great solution for a virus with this kind of strong age dependency in lethality. But I still have no idea at all how we are supposed to protect the vulnerable populations while the virus is spreading among everyone else. For me this is just a slogan, not a real solution. I don't see how it could be possible to let the virus surge in a large part of the population while still reliably isolating everyone above 60 or so. I honestly don't see any way this can work at all, so I'm entirely baffled by this line of argument.
What do you think happens if we do nothing? Seeing that Sweden's cases didn't spiral out of control as initially expected I am sceptical about how much use lockdowns actually are.
Are there countries that have actually had zero response at a national or provincial level to COVID that we can look at?
The degree of the response varies. Most states have a program to close “non-essential” commercial and public indoor spaces or limit inhabitants. Masks are typically required indoors.
In rural areas you’ll see lower compliance rates, but also fewer outbreaks due to the lower population density and fewer social opportunities.
It is technically closer to nothing than a very aggressive lockdown, though, even though that does not make for an effective study of no response. US residents have not been forbidden from leaving their homes.
https://news.yahoo.com/fauci-shoots-down-flawed-hydroxychlor...
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.): "it was peer reviewed"
Fauci: "It doesn't matter. You can peer review something that's a bad study."
For some reason this has led to media concluding that face masks do not protect you but that's not the same.
Another important effect of wearing a face mask is that it may protect other people from being infected by you but that effect was not part of the study.
Stripped of all the political connotations it's actually kind of an interesting debate for scientists to have.
Check out his Twitter feed for more.
No paper can ever show that. You cannot prove a negative (except in extremely bounded cases, of which the mask proposition is not one).
This is why statistical studies attempt to provide evidence supporting an alternative hypothesis. If you cannot accept the alternative hypothesis, you must accept the null. Studies do not attempt to disprove the alternative hypothesis, and accept it otherwise.
This study attempted to find statistically convincing evidence that masks provided personal protection, and failed to do so. Does it mean that they have proven that masks don't work? Of course not. There are many reasons why they might have failed to detect a real effect. But it does imply that whatever effect is being hypothesized is smaller than the power of the study they used to detect it.
> Limitation: Inconclusive results, missing data, variable adherence, patient-reported findings on home tests, no blinding, and no assessment of whether masks could decrease disease transmission from mask wearers to others.
I would not be quick to promulgate or depend on the study.
It seems obvious by now that universal mask policies have not been very effective at controlling the transmission rate when compared to other variables: known and unknown. Maybe it is a little bit effective but that has not been conclusively shown yet. Where I live, the Ro value dropped below 1 before masks were required and shot well above 1 months later. Compliance is high, probably as high as any public health policy
As for studies that do meet standards, they are hard, not easy, to dismiss. That work tends to get meta-analyzed and synthesized, not brushed off, at least by the reader community at large. I wish more of it got replicated, too, but that's a different thread.
Meanwhile, we still have to make decisions. But not entirely without scientific guidance. We can reason from studies of how the disease spreads and how potential countermeasures work. We can argue by analogy to what science has revealed about apparently similar phenomenon, like flu. Those aren't scientific arguments so much as other kinds of arguments hopefully informed by science. Pending better science as such, that's what we've got.
It seems reasonable to me to think that, whatever the scientific contribution of the study, the fact that it doesn't test the primary claimed benefit of masks suggests that it is not the last word on the matter. When I say 'I would not be quick to promulgate or depend on the study', I am not dismissing the study, but recognizing its limitations, as do the authors.
Once these factors are removed its unlikely that mask wearing provides any value beyond security theatre.
But that's the point.
We know that distancing works. We know that hygiene works. We don't yet know whether masks work or not, but we do struggle to find benefit when research is done (and this includes for source control -- there's plenty of research on that).
When scientists claim "masks work, we know they work, and we know they work well" they risk feeding a narrative that we can go about our normal day to day life so long as we wear a mask. That's untrue. We still need to distance, we still need scrupulous hygiene routines.
They also feed into a narrative that people not wearing masks are causing harm, which leaves those people open to harassment and attack.
Beyond that, as the link tm Taleb’s blog posted by a commenter below shows, if anything, the study shows a positive effect for mask wearers.
> Sweden has admitted its coronavirus immunity predictions were wrong as cases soar across the country
https://www.businessinsider.com/sweden-herd-immunity-second-...
As for the article's dire warnings about downstream (presumably economic) impacts, my friends in many of the countries you named are able to go out and enjoy a night on the town, albeit in masks. I expect many of these economies to recover much faster than America.
Public Policy and Academic Discussions are not the same thing.
If you tell 100M people to change their lives dramatically, there's a 100% chance death threats will be involved. There are always naysaysers. We got death threats when seatbelts were legally enforced.
That's not to say public policy is always correct.
But what we talk about in inner circles, what we publish ... should be open. We shouldn't be oppressing such-and-such periodical because they say this or that.
Unfortunately, publications do make their way into the headlines as Fox and CNN pluck, selectively from the stack and misrepresent findings to suit their narrative.
Which may in fact point at the real problem ... making better firewalls between 'serious discussion' and 'public communications'. Scientists don't like being misrepresented either.
Also, it is pretty ironic how Scientific American is crying about science getting less evidence based and more politically motivated. I don't remember them staying out of politics in the last American election.
As someone who does science day to day, I have had no issue discussing contentious scientific ideas with other scientists. I also know plenty of scientists that hold views that others would think go again science; religious fundamentalism not the least of these. I have found scientists to be very tolerant of people holding ideas that are not gained from evidence.
Also, how does one become anti-science in your opinion? Does questioning contradictory orders now means anti-science? Like how masks didn't work at the start of the pandemic but now even a kerchief will work? Millions of people protesting in the streets don't spread coronavirus but ten people indoors is a hotspot? I don't know about you but my teachers taught me questioning everything is an integral part of science.
Masks worked the same at the beginning of the pandemic as they do now, but the government did have terrible messaging about masks being (potentially) more likely to infect you, and encouraging people not to wear masks. There was minor pushback on this. Clearly a kerchief is a shitty mask, there is public guidance that you should not be able to blow out a birthday candle with your mask on. The dude at the front of the Target isn't going to argue with you about it, but I think it's antisocial to not wear a mask or to wear a faux mask.
Large protests did spread the virus, but as it was summer, covid is UV-sensitive, and participants mostly young/healthy, the effect was muted. This also occurred with many outdoor "going-to-be-a-superspreader" events like political rallys.
Indoors is the worst case for coronavirus as home A/C systems will recirculate the virus throughout the house. Some hospitals had to rush to overhaul ventilation and filtration systems for COVID.
That is my point. Masks (the same type) always work the same way. It doesn't matter if they are in the beginning or ending of a pandemic. My problem is with people who put science on a pedestal and suppress anyone who disagree. They did the same thing at the beginning of the pandemic. Masks have been used for decades but apparently they were now reserved only for the govt. After the pandemic started taking off this position was flipped. Now you have to use anything you have to cover your mouth. Some of the early infected might have died just because they heard in the TV that masks are not safe.
My frustration is with people who abandon their common sense just because some "experts" on TV told them to. (There were plenty of others who said that masks will work, but they were also attacked by fact checkers who cited these experts on TV.)
And perhaps you missed it but I said:
> they were also attacked by fact checkers who cited these experts on TV.
I never said experts themselves attacked anyone. I said fact checkers attacked people using these experts. The most famous one is of course Dr. Fauci. His famous video was used by news anchors, fact checkers and most people on social media. And most of the fact checking was going on platforms like Twitter and reddit. And searching for months old comments on those platforms is very difficult.
Update: It is impossible. Reddit search results won't even sort by time. Most search results are cluttered by recent posts.
The CDC gives guidance to try to help the health of the country, not you personally. This resulted in bad guidance being issued. This has hurt their reputation quite a bit. It wasn't like "Science said masks don't work" though.
Finally, as we have seen clearly during this pandemic, the CDC is highly political. They hire scientists, but overall it seems like everything must be approved by the politically appointed leaders at the top of the org. A good example of this are the hastily retracted reports, where statements telling people it is risky to eat in restaurants were cut from the updated version.
So in practice the 1% of evidence against something really obvious ends up being enough ammo for people who have an agenda to form a convincing case.
This happens a lot with conspiracy theories like <insert your favorite example here>
>Advocates on both sides have dug in, hurling dismissive and vitriolic attacks at individuals in the other camp.
In other words politics. Only in politics are your opponents uninformed, unenlightened, rude, and careless.
If we create a venn diagram of science fields and politics fields. The only place in science where we call the science deniers or call for censorship is where politics get involved.
Now that you know it's politics and not science. Evaluate the goal. Evaluate which politics is behind it. Weird I keep hearing about a great reset.
For example, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/09/france-thousa...
Why France has made it illegal for you to leave your home and police can enter and search your home at any time.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-9566...
However, too many people seem to be blasé about the cost of not having effective public health measures. And many don't seem to have recognised that some countries have brought COVID down to near-zero - and as a result don't need the measures!
It's a complex space of risk management.
Like one group justifying themselves because of president of another (even though they are comparing apples to oranges)?
Most of the COVID contrarianism is a product of the political system, not of reality.
These remain people, not enemy combatants. However people seem to you and how you think they should be punished is irrelevant.
It's a sickness! But here you are talking about the wrong type of people in the context of a war metaphor. It's completely batshit.
Anti-maskers are silly, but also a tiny minority. Lockdown protests have a very valid point about their livelihood and have my sympathy up until the point they start making nonsensical claims or teaming up with the usual professional controversists and far right stirrers.
They had about two months of strict lockdown. What you see in the video is the result.
It's a fairly critical look at Wuhan and the government response there, which nevertheless shows the stark contrast between what's happening now in China vs. Europe and the US.
[1] https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/co...
The real problem with scientists being overly optimistic about masks is that it causes some people to think they don't need to take any other measures - all the need to do is put a mask on. We see people saying that we should reopen pubs or churches (both places with serious risk of spreading covid) because we can get people to wear a mask.
Noting this clarifies some omissions from the narrative in the article -- e.g., the Sweden "success" is definitely mixed [1], and the US administration's messaging has been deliberately anti-science.
Both sides just want to push their narrative. No one wants to accept basic facts and find common ground to solve problems. I don't know what the solution is.
Sorry, but that's a claim without evidence - that the public might accept the next phase of COVID-19 control.
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful. Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
Does not going to indoor weddings decrease your chance of infection? Yes, obviously. Do masks work? Very likely, yes[1]. Do masks harm? Lol, no. What's the optimal balance between prevention of infection and allowing life/the economy to continue as usual? Hard to say. Is anyone prevented from debating that question? Not according to the ten articles I see on that question every day. Hydroxychloroquine? Now that you're asking, I've a newfound appreciation for the idea of having died, say, 86 seconds ago...
That question of trade-offs, by the way, isn't even a question of science any more, but values. So it would be out of scope wrt to this article.
Sure,but at the same not having indoor weeding also has its disadvantages.
The question is, is it worth the risk of going to indoor weeding? At least for me its obviously yes.
>Do masks work?
the article pointed out research paper that says there is no strong evidence that mask help.
>Do masks harm?
For some, yes, for start it can be uncomfortable to wear, it can even be more uncomfortable when exercising or in hot weather.
Not to mention you lose clue from people facial expressions.
Then we need to first learn about it before implementing measure that is harmful such as lockdown.
Somehow lockdown doesn't have long-term consequences?
>Secondly, evidence for mask significantly outnumber contrary paper
What matter is the content of the paper not the number of paper.
>Thirdly, risk of you going to the wedding includes the risk of the spread of infection to people you contact with, among them your elder relatives
I didn't denied that but there is also risk of banning indoor weeding. The question is which has less risk?
>well, I do not know who would buy that.
I can only speak for myself
Lockdowns are almost always implemented to stop hospital from overflowing. Both short and long term social and medical effects of overflown hospitals are much higher than mild effects of lockdowns. Of course, it is better to minimize them (say like Taiwan does), but deliberate avoidance of lockdowns will always turn out more expensive than applying them in right moments.
>What matter is the content of the paper not the number of paper.
No, unfortunately, if you cannot independently verify the claims in the paper, quantity becomes important (obviously, the papers have to com from reputable sources).
> The question is which has less risk?
I have no idea what this means.
> I can only speak for myself
I am not are about that, honestly (that you'd buy argument of this quality, coming from someone else).
In fact, I would argue that lockdown can cause overflow because of all the delayed procedures and layoffs due to lack of doing those procedures
>No, unfortunately, if you cannot independently verify the claims in the paper, quantity becomes important (obviously, the papers have to com from reputable sources).
More doesn't mean it correct, you have to argue the content of the paper. Quantity doesn't mean quality.
>I have no idea what this means.
Covid has risk
Banning indoor wedding has risk
Which has less risk? Its matter of choosing the less risky.
>I am not are about that, honestly (that you'd buy argument of this quality, coming from someone else
What do you mean? The original poster argue that mask is harmless.
I gave argument how mask can be harmful.
I can only speak for myself that at least for me the mask can be harmful. I even acknowledge that for other people it may not.
The trouble with this argument is that the limiting factor is ICU nurses, and they can't be spun up on demand.
Honestly, if this was possible, it would make a lot of things much easier.
And ironically due to lockdown, lots of nurses being laid off/furloughed.
And there is field hospitals for covid being dismantled because there is lack of use.
Now that the US essentially has cases everywhere, there are not, and will not be, enough ICU nurses for all the cases.
The issue with the way case number calculated is, vast majority of the people are either asymptomatic or only have mild symptoms.
How do you figure there will not be enough icu nurses?
> Then we need to first learn about it before implementing measure that is harmful such as lockdown.
So, first let the harm happen, then when we're sure there's harm, then restrict? That can make sense, depending on your perception of the degree of harm and the probability of harm. Still, for at least some degrees and probabilities of harm, that's a spectacularly wrong-headed approach.
[Edit: And let me note that I agree with you on one thing: The lockdown is harmful. That doesn't mean I agree with your larger perspective.]
Regardless what you choose, there will be harm.
Both is harmful.
Covid is harmful.
Lockdown is harmful.
Its matter of choosing the less harmful one.
This opinion is one primarily born of ignorance.
> the article pointed out research paper that says there is no strong evidence that mask help.
I'll err on the side of caution because I understand the consequences.
> For some, yes, for start it can be uncomfortable to wear, it can even be more uncomfortable when exercising or in hot weather. Not to mention you lose clue from people facial expressions.
So, no.
What about the secondary effect of banning indoor wedding?
Maybe they're not prevented from debating it, but the sides will not take each other seriously.
For example, ponder your phrasing here:
> Do masks harm? Lol, no.
You say "Lol, no." as if this was a settled matter - inherently dismissing all possible criticism. There are studies that indicate that the higher concentration of bacteria which masks lead to in the area around your mouth may lead to an increase in dental issues.
Is this settled science? No. Does saying "Lol, no." do a disservice to the scientists trying to settle this? Yes.
And I'm sure I don't know, but here's an article saying "A new study conducted by researchers at Imperial College London found the COVID-19 infection fatality ratio is about 1.15% of infected people in high-income nations and 0.23% in low-income nations." [1]
Which seems like quite a range? But they say it's because low-income nations have fewer old people.
These numbers are not like constants from physics. They aren't the same everywhere, they depend on the environment, and they can change over time. They depend on quality of care, which might improve due to doctors understanding the disease better, or degrade due to hospitals being overwhelmed.
[1] https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-...
The only "war" in sight is of the cultural variety, with interested parties seeing that graph in January, optimistically (mis)interpreting it as showing an equivalence with the flu, and studiously avoiding any contact with new data since.
[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...
Well, let's think about it for a second before completely dismissing it. Are there any circumstances where masks could do more harm than good? Well I don't know for sure, but off the top of my head: sharing masks and not washing your masks regularly seem like they could be vectors for infection. Also masks might give you a false sense of security and cause you social distance less frequently than you ought to (for example).
Unfortunately, everything is framed as a battle between those who believe in science and those who don't, rationality versus irrationality, experts versus conspiracy theorists, enlightenment versus chaos. There are no "values" experts, only experts in minimizing medical risk, so minimizing medical risk is what we do.
If you asked people like us in a vacuum if science provides moral answers, they would say no, of course not, and they would probably say some very pointed things about the moral track record of science. But when they have a hard decision to make, they want an expert, and the experts on disease are scientists.
Of course it works out well for us to trust scientists and other highly educated professionals with political questions. They have similar educational backgrounds, similar tastes, and similar economic and power interests. What's good for them is probably fine for us. We shouldn't be surprised when people with different backgrounds, tastes, and economic interests sense something fishy with this arrangement.
"Clarification added after publication: the authors have collaborated in the past with both John Ioannidis and Vinay Prasad, who are discussed in this essay and in the accompanying sidebar."
There is also obvious bias in the content of the article, which I guess is explainable by being an "opinion" where I guess the authors can't be told by the editors to change the content with the goal of reducing the bias -- I guess by definition they are expected to be "opinionated."
The article is written in the tone of questioning if the government mandated measures work at all and published exactly as we can observe the measures explicitly working across Europe, sinking the numbers of the registered cases:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToS...
It should also be pointed to the fact that all the European states didn't decide to introduce the measurements for the sake of it but because their health systems reached the point of being overwhelmed, which for some of European countries would be the second time. In all these countries, the "dilemma" as presented in the article is simply false: all of them first waited hoping that the measurements wouldn't be necessary and introduced them practically as they had no other acceptable choice.
The "hard" lockdown first time worked in Italy in the Spring, allowing for very low case count during the Summer there.
This line of thoughts is quite puzzling to me. Domestic violence, drug uses are independent issues should be fixed by themselves.
In face of grave danger, there is always a balance to make, and usually their danger is so high that it usually has a overriding effect. This type of balance is not unique to covid, it literally happens everywhere all the time.
EDIT: I see downvotes and that's okay I guess, but I'm not any kind of medical or scientific expert so I'd rather hear why you think this list is wrong. For me it looks like a comprehensive list of research about the topic.
It's a strange site where they mix both facts and misinformation.