Took my parents a bit to 180 on that one.
I sent them N95s in late Feb and they still don't really wear them (though at least they wear basic fabric masks). At first they told me 'those don't prevent covid - i heard might make it worse.' I tried to explain what n95 technically meant to no avail.
As recently as two months ago I argued with a doctor (not my doctor, a person I met) that these guidelines were off, poor messaging and an outright mistake given the trust fallout. I was told, no no, when I was getting my license, they made us do specialized fitting and testing and even put down some fit information on a card (she showed me a card with details). I was confused, since N95s come in two sizes, regular and "small."
This is an example of an institutional/acedemic ivory tower needing a reality check if I ever saw one. How many people died because many people heard that masks were useless and even harmful? Nope, not red tie people or flat earthers, or whatever conspiratorialists du jour that enjoy mainstream press coverage; here, mainstream institutions are responsible for this.
I wore a mask the first week of March because it was common sense to wear a mask the first week of March. It took until JUNE for the WHO to change its tune (https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20200608/who-changes-stance-...).
This expert did the professional version of a facepalm when she recounted the times when these health experts failed in their drills. She made it clear that the public will look to them as experts, so be clear, be informative, tell the truth, give actionable steps, etc. Because if these experts _don't_ do these things, the public will look elsewhere. And that "elsewhere" will likely be random yahoos on the internet. Doctors saying "wear a mask" will have greater overall benefits, even if people follow that advice BADLY.
Yes, if you want absolute certainty in a highly infectious environment like the hospital, when you're doing bronchoscopies or taking care of COVID patients, you'd want to get the fit absolutely perfect (especially if it takes key resources like Nurses / docs out of commission for several weeks).
But if you're just worried about everyday scenarios like sharing an elevator in my apartment building or going to a grocery store where people still seem to turn up with out masks (or worse, pretend bandanas are masks) or get on public transit, then getting some protection is good enough.
Edit: I misremembered the original advice. CDC specifically said masks were unnecessary. Obviously they didn't have the evidence to make that kind of assertion.
The CDC has more an ambiguous relationship but they came out against masks in Feb and reversed course somewhat in April. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/05/22/mask-w...!
I would take a step back from partisan politics for this issue, something people have a very tough time with even in the best of times. We should criticize all institutions when they're wrong on questions of public health.
There is no reasonable explanation except that the misleading statements were intentional - there's no way they didn't notice how their statements were received. And infamously the US Surgeon General made a pretty clear statement with his "Don't buy masks" tweet.
> I was confused, since N95s come in two sizes, regular and "small."
As I understand it, if neither passes the fit test, you need a different brand or can't do work that requires one.
We did not find evidence that surgical-type face masks are
effective in reducing laboratory-confirmed influenza
transmission, either when worn by infected persons (source
control) or by persons in the general community to reduce
their susceptibility
For what it's worth I have a degree in physics and used to work in rocketry and sim science so I'm not just some naive person arguing with a domain expert.
What I learned from this is that there's a lot going on besides facts. Social status and signaling matters a lot and the reason they were upset is because I upset that, even though it was in private. When we politicize and socialize things it's a double edged sword. It can get people to adopt strategies but can also add binders.
Whoever decided lying to the public about masks to make sure health care workers had PPE should be prosecuted IMO.
Plus as far as I'm aware there was no lying, it was a very wishy-washy diversion, woes about PPE shortage due to China shut down, and 5D chessing about trying to not worsen the shortage instead of giving a simple and clear answer, that "yes, they unquestionably help [healthcare workers use them for a reason!], but we'll be stockpiling every shipment for later".
This is far from a good thing, but I believe you've got the cause, or at least blame, mostly wrong.
Interesting note? Right at the beginning of the crisis Republicans trusted the CDC more than Dems.
People don't like being lied to "for their own good" or whatever. This is the Red Cross Doughnut moment. It's over for trust in public health institutions.
Unfortunately early on it was viewed as masks or social distance, with both competing for the top spot in the prevention hierarchy.
The truth is masks help, but no where near as much as social distancing. I also think this was a misfire of harm reduction vs prevention.
Stay home, and if you have to go out wear a mask was probably the right messaging. Along with masks are not fool proof and you can still get sick, so really minimize interactions.
I think a mask is meaningless walking outside on the sidewalk; if virus particles survive past six feet and through wind then we have bigger problems ; no, the mask mandate makes sense in stores, workplace hallways and bathrooms, hair salons and stuff like that.
It's complex to tell people to wear a mask in specific situations so the authorities say to wear it all the time, which feels oppressive. It's complex to tell people not to hoard things so we lied and told the public masks weren't recommended until June.
Now the gloves thing is a mystery to me. Do people not have control over their hands? The virus doesn't enter the hands, it enters the face-holes, but the hands have to be close to the face-holes to enter, where they bind to receptors in the airways. The virus-facehole transit route exists even if you wear gloves.
A few months back I saw someone sitting outside, on a park bench, mask on chin while they ate a sandwich -- with their gloves.
Yeah, it can be the case that people are dumb-dumbs AND our institutions are awful at messaging strategy.
So from here, the issue is that common sense was shot down in favor of credentialism. I wore a mask starting in March because it was common sense, and I was given scientific arguments for not wearing them. Because, science. That I observed medical professionals wearing them, and east Asian citizens doing this for decades already, was irrelevant in the face of credentialed spokespeople from large organizations arguing that up was down and down was up.
So then the idea that people are children and should be treated as such becomes very elitist if taken like this.
Other things people said:
* N95s have a short shelf-life. Complete bullshit. The real first POF is the elasticated band. If that's fine, your fit will probably be fine. We knew this wasn't true so my 10 year old masks were still legit.
* N95s require a lot of training for fit. The fit test is trivial to do. We knew this but lots of people on HN and authorities claimed this wasn't the case.
* N95s cannot be reused. This was highly likely to be nonsense. The virus doesn't survive on surfaces for very long and that was the high probability event. After all, viruses rarely mutate so that they're terrible in all ways. i.e. this virus likely behaves like other coronaviruses except for a few variations.
And of course those with our half-mask respirators printed our exhale valves and placed our P100s in them and were full protected.
There was a lot of misinformation going around by people who just didn't know very much and were very eager to sound authoritative. They were all about "sources" and "citations" that are just parrot views (i.e. single primary source, many secondary sources giving the impression of consensus).
People made fun of the tech industry for how they handled it, too. Techies (being coddled millennial snowflakes) shut down before any government, stopped business flights to/from China, and started working from home and wearing masks earlier.
Honestly, my biggest mistake was that I was one of the few in my group of friends who believed the US had competent bureaucrats and so I stayed in the market while my friends sold ahead of the crash. Welp.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/on...
I have an N95 I've worn for the week. I can fill it up with water in the sink and it won't drip any water out. What the hell is going on there..
Though even that is magnitudes better than nothing.
Science bias leads you to come down hard that things that aren't proven are false. No hard proof double blind studies that masks work with covid19 means mask don't work.
Credentialist bias makes you assume people without are stupid and need to be tricked to do the right thing.
Nevertheless, IHME was kept in the spotlight by the government and media because they deemed the experts as an independent health research center at a reputable university. Their predictions drove many poor policy decisions, culminating in the infamous claim by Trump that the pandemic would be over soon after Easter. Many epidemiologists, statisticians, physicists, mathematicians etc. called their conclusions into question and built better models (mostly using SEIR / SEIS). It took several more months for IHME to improve their own model, but by then the damage was already done.
They had it wrong for a few weeks, okay. But they changed their guidelines, and there was new data showing the efficacy of wearing masks(at least the combination of the masks and the social behavior they encourage), and they have stuck to those guidelines for nearly 8 months now.
I'm honestly amazed how long people are being hung up on that single, one-way change in guidelines during the early weeks. It's unfortunate the guidelines didn't come sooner. But looking at the timeline, where we were then, and where we are now.. The totality of it all.. IDK, it's weird seeing people constantly bringing it up and blaming public health official. Especially considering what the messaging from non-health public officials has been over the past 8 months and 300k deaths.
Stuff was confusing as it was in April. I argued with people about masks then. Normal, rational people, who didn't see this update and sudden change of tune. The information noise level was high in those days, which didn't help.
Instead of organizing PPE distribution and informing people that it might come to mandatory mask wearing, the message was a very dumb "well, maybe, but really think of the shortage and well, it's a hard question". :/
You know what she has never done that I can remember? Belittled them, talked down to them or not considered that they were _humans_ with their own goals and values. I can't say that she never lied to us (Santa Claus etc) and of course sometimes she would force us to got to bed or do homework or whatever, but it seems obvious that she genuinely cared at all times and she was happy when you were able to do something new or achieved something.
The vibe I have seen from those in power and their supporters have been one of arrogance and utter contempt bordering on hatred for the masses that won't blindly obey them. They have no interest in protecting the population, they are just there for the power.
I think Fauci did care, a few others probably did too, but the general tone on twitter, reddit and the media was one of contempt.
I vaguely follow a (real) conservative on twitter, and she was also pretty arrogant but obviously from the other side, so this is a bipartisan issue, I think.
That said, I didn't see any information on the sensitivity of the test. Did I miss it?
they should absolutely treat people who think 5G cell towers cause covid like children.
or people who think wearing a mask will kill you
or people who think the earth is flat
and so on.