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Comment by nlh | Hacker News Reader

I predict we’re going to look back at ourselves in a few years and find a few things particularly egregious, much as we look back at “smoking is good for your health!” ads from the 1950s:

1. Our early guidance that masks don’t help (because we needed to save the real masks for healthcare workers); and

2. Our collective obsession around Mar-Apr 2020 with surface disinfecting. The shortage on Clorox wipes, the obsessive cleaning of hands and packages and groceries. The wiping down of airplane seats. Hand sanitizer everywhere.

In the end we’re going to realize it was all about close proximity airborne transmission.

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It’s not even necessarily close proximity: “Infected after 5 minutes, from 20 feet away: South Korea study shows coronavirus’ spread indoors” https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-12-09/five-m...

one word of caution is the current South Korean administration has been dangerously leaning towards pro-CCP. President Moon has repeatedly praised the communist party and President Xi and they have effectively weaponized the pandemic to suppress protests.

Imagine if Trump handed plutonium yielding power plants to Iran on a usb device to win political concessions. That is what has happened in South Korea and there is a massive "USBgate" scandal that implicates the Korean president.

So anything out of South Korea right now under the current admin, we should take a grain of salt. The new Biden administration labelled South Korea as an "illiberal democracy".

Thanks for sharing this. I finally have unequivocal data to support my argument that we should not eat indoors at restaurants.

First published back in April, 2020:

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article

- Indoor environment

- No/limited air circulation

- Mask-less

All 3 combined, put a COVID-19 carrier there, trouble.

Yes but you're missing the point is that the advice right now is that a 6ft distance (indoor and outdoor) is sufficient for people to take off their masks.

Where is that the advice? In the UK it's very much saying that you must wear a mask indoors and maintain as much distance as you can.

My part of the US apparently. The local restaurant regulations is 6ft apart and if people are sitting you don't need a mask. Same with stadiums/theaters/etc..

Is there any reason not to wear mask on stadium/theater/... (obviously except restaurant) ?

I would add the 6ft rule, but it's unclear to me that people even now realize that's it's based on assumptions about transmission which were proven wrong pretty early on.

The distance rule works and helps... When the area is well ventilated. On par with outdoors. It does next to nothing for typical indoors, as the aerosol won't be evacuated and will stay suspended in air, when the next person enters the area.

I’m living in Europe but a year after the spread of Covid-19 this Atlantic article¹ is still relevant.

I live in a city so I can buy from local, brick-and-mortar retail almost exclusively and I prefer to support specialist stores over general, e.g., buy vegetables from the local fruit-and-veg shop rather than the supermarket. However, I’ve been very frustrated by the fact that pharmacies I’ve gone to don’t have any better a selection of masks than other shops. I’ve also yet to come across any masks that have some sort of quality mark or certified to some standard. I find it crazy that the majority of masks for sale to the public are “fashion masks” which offer no guarantees of effectiveness.

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/01/why-arent...

We were dealing with the unknown and with deadly consequences. The behavior was correct for the situation. And when we got better information, hopefully we adjusted.

Early on I tried to figure out what the correct precautions were and then decided that everything practical until further notice is the proper response.

A point is what about next time? Who knows what works for Covid19 might be worthless for the next pandemic.

I agree the initial behavior was understandable given the uncertainty. What’s less understandable is how slowly we’ve adjusted to better information…

Agreed! What is challenging is that, as a culture, we do not have a collective sense of what is solid “information”. Between filter bubbles and the previous administration contradicting its own messaging, topped off with a populace lacking the mental training to sort through it all and figure out what makes sense, the resulting confusion seems inevitable.

It’s easy to point at the result(eg people making stupid decisions) and ignore the root causes (eg lack of critical thinking skills training, filter bubbles, and more), but to see real systemic changes, the root causes are what will need attention.

>Our early guidance that masks don’t help (because we needed to save the real masks for healthcare workers)

I see this mentioned a lot, is this really a big factor? Did a ton of people genuinely begin the pandemic by believing officials and then after a few weeks start to disbelieve officials? That just doesn't make sense to me. I mostly see this issue used as a bad faith cudgel to justify not wearing a mask now, but someone acting in bad faith would have picked another excuse if it wasn't this one.

Yes, it was a big factor. The WHO was discouraging mask use for months after the pandemic started, even though we knew that the original SARS was airborne and we knew that masks were effective against other coronaviruses. They were pushing the line that there was "no evidence", when what they really mean was "there isn't overwhelming and conclusive evidence, and I am not inclined towards Bayesian reasoning in public because it presents too much career risk and I'm a total coward".

> people genuinely begin the pandemic by believing officials and then after a few weeks start to disbelieve officials?

(Anecdote)

At the start of the pandemic, I took it all very seriously. We were in the fog of war and didn't know how serious it was, so we assumed it was very dangerous. We did our best to avoid people and do our part to "stop the spread" or "flatten the curve".

At the beginning of June, I started to get more bold with things. Wife and kids still avoided stores, but I would go for more than just the weekly groceries.

Sometime in July / August we started seeing some of our friends again.

September / October we started going to stores as a family again. Also started going to church again.

At this point, our habits are changed to the point that we just don't really go anywhere, but we don't avoid anything for "safety" reasons. We wear our masks in stores, etc. because most have signs on the doors asking us to and we try to be polite about it.

At this point I think I can count 20+ people of all ages that I know personally who have had Coronavirus. I don't have a terribly big social circle. In the words of my best friend, whose family had it over Christmas, "I wouldn't recommend going out and catching it on purpose, but you get through it just fine"

Which is to say, I think we know much more about the virus now than we did then, and the risk profile is very low for people without serious pre-existing health conditions or the very old.

And hell, my grandma's nursing home had an outbreak. I think they had maybe 6 or 7 people die out of the 60 or so people who caught it. That's a tragedy, but the bigger tragedy is that they were prevented from seeing family for ten months now and had to suffer alone, many of them degrading significantly from the lack of interaction. Thankfully they are getting the vaccine and should be allowed to open up soon.

This is the rational approach to take. At the beginning it was an unknown, and I was more cautious than anyone I knew. I was gathering supplies and locking down in January. There were videos of people in China having seizures in the middle of the road (whatever happened to those videos, by the way?). The correct response was to be overly cautious until we had more data.

We have more data now. If you're under 70 the chances of you dying, if you don't already have a massively serious disease are statistically almost irrelevant. It's a standard coronavirus like the common cold, that's 2-3 times deadlier than the flu, and predominately only deadly to the very elderly. People are wise now that their claims of how scary it is is provably wrong and are now turning to the much more ambiguous claim about "don't you know that X% have long lasting problems afterwards?". Hogwash. The only thing they have to back that up is that they heard someone else say it. They'll never link to data that says that, because there isn't any.

We have the data now. What I gave is the data. It comes straight from the CDC, not your emotional facebook friend. Any rational human being, who proports to "follow the science", should act in accordance to the data. The data doesn't care about your feelings. The data doesn't care what people on Twitter tell you you should think. We have the data now.

It's to the point where the parent comment and my comment will be downvoted to oblivion because we encourage people to follow the data. Downvoted and censored by people claiming they "follow the science". For pointing out the science. This is not a good situation for us to find ourselves in.

> We have the data now

Yeah, we have the data that 447,000 Americans have been killed by Covid. That is data.

Honestly, death comes to us all. My dad died five years ago this week. Death is tragic, but the world keeps moving.

The main thing I've concluded based on people's reaction to the death tolls is that much of our population has not come to terms with their mortality and hate being reminded of it.

This is strange logic... since we all are going to die anyway, we shouldn't worry about causes of preventable death?

So i guess we don't need drunk driving laws... only about 10,000 people a year die in the US from drunk drivers, they were going to die anyway. The world keeps on moving.

No reason to work on curing cancer. Dead someday anyway.

Yes, death comes to us all. That has no bearing on whether we should work to prevent death.

I just looked up the CDC data and it says ~0.7% of the US population dies each year. Out of ~330 million people, that's 2.4 million people each year.

So assuming that 400k figure is excess mortality, that means 17% more people died last year than normal.

That is tragic, but the way it gets talked about, you would think we were at 10x or more.

17% more people dying every year is a huge increase. Why do you feel the need to downplay it?

>That is tragic, but the way it gets talked about, you would think we were at 10x or more.

Then again, we've invaded foreign countries and sacrificed our civil liberties ("war on terror") for way less deaths than that.

> Then again, we've invaded foreign countries and sacrificed our civil liberties ("war on terror") for way less deaths than that.

Makes you wonder why we are always so quick to trade away our freedoms...

I’ve been wondering if we’ll see a drop in deaths in the future too. A lot of the deaths are people that wouldn’t live much longer anyway. If 2 years from now the death rate is 17% lower we only lost an average 2 life-years of the 17% population, which is tragic, but is it more tragic for the other 99.3% of people to lose 1 life year because of that?

For one thing, we lost 447,000 so far WITH all of the quarantining and shut downs... that number would have been WAY higher if we had done nothing. The hospitals would have been completely overwhelmed, and many who survived would have died.

Also, we did not ‘lose’ a year of life.

This is a ridiculous post. It’s not about _you_, it’s about vulnerable people who you were willingly becoming a vector of infection for.

Your friend who recommended “not to go out and get it, but it isn’t that bad” doesn’t know if they gave it to a vulnerable person.

It’s never been just about you or how you and your circle will handle it.

> Your friend who recommended “not to go out and get it, but it isn’t that bad” doesn’t know if they gave it to a vulnerable person.

Yes, I'm sure the 20 days they were collectively quarantined was completely reckless and putting people in danger.

Edit:

Also, his wife caught it at work. Where she was being, you know, essential.

You completely missed the point. The point is that your approach is self-centered and focused on how you will react to the virus. It’s never been about you, it’s about being a vector of transmission. The more risk you take, the more chance you pass it to someone who can’t handle catching it.

You will likely never see the consequences of that, but you could have transmitted the virus to someone who died.

It’s not a lot to ask for people to refrain from social gatherings and unnecessary activities in order to protect their fellow humans. Do no harm and all that you know...

I remember researching mask effectiveness when it was spreading around China but hadn't made it out anywhere else (that we knew about) and everyone thought it was just going to be another SARS.

I personally couldn't find a single English article that said mask were anything besides a placebo for the person wearing them if they wanted protection from others. That instinctively made no sense that a barrier in front of your mouth and nose provided zero protection and I'm glad I didn't trust the lack of study in the west as evidence of ineffectiveness and kept trying to secure masks for myself and my family before the lock downs hit.

You searched poorly, PubMed was quite full of medium quality evidence for their use, back from 2008. Even against influenza which is notoriously widespread and harder to control.

Evidence against was at most due to low adherence. Which means so much as masks don't work if you don't wear them, and they're annoying enough for general public. Quite obvious.

Face shields are somewhat less tested, and likely much less effective based on theoretical data, as they don't form an effective barrier.

I recall almost from the beginning that they said wear clothe masks even if made from an old tee shirt so that medical personal could have the limited PPE, NO ONE said "don't wear a mask because it does nothing" . Clearly that never happened, not ever, except in various "the virus is a hoax" online platforms. Some initial people said 6 ft distance was enough if not wearing a mask. I have been following this as close as anyone since the beginning aside from medical professionals.

> NO ONE said "don't wear a mask because it does nothing" .

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams tweeted in February 2020, "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"

https://www.axios.com/surgeon-general-reversal-face-mask-d38...

1. Was just a flat out lie by various public health officials that they justified for the greater good. It was probably the biggest and easiest-to-prevent mistake of the pandemic, and it certainly cost many lives.

2. It still makes sense to wash hands, use gloves, and wipe down anything coming into your house that was recently touched by strangers. There's no good reason to allow a known vector, even if it's lower risk than airborne.

It should have been illegal for health officials to knowingly lie to the public.

Why only health officials?

The bar is higher for professionals speaking in their field of expertise

Well, now we know that they are neither professionals, nor experts. Most of what comes from the public health establishment is more like "science theater" that is engineered to obey whatever political dictates need to be handed down with the air of authority.

Recall the proclamations from last summer that massive street protests were either magically not going to spread COVID, or that it was somehow acceptable because "racism is a public health issue".

It's especially frustrating, as places like the Czech Republic initially did pretty well by telling people to cover their faces with any old thing - cut up t-shirts, whatever. Maybe people in the US are too selfish and would have gone for the 'fancy' masks and ended up depriving doctors of them, but it seems like not even trying was pretty bad.

Looks like subsequently things went off the rails there. Wonder what happened.

What part of 1. Was a lie? It's a fact many hospitals were extremely lacking in PPE, especially when it came to N95 masks, at the start of the pandemic. There was a shortage/crisis to the point where there were many local compaigns to manufacture basic PPE like cloth masks and face shields for hospitals. How could you forget about that so quickly?

Except they didn't say "They work, but don't buy them because the hospitals need them". Here's what they said: https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-fauci-outdated-...

At least to me, that was pretty dismissive about them. That set the tone for a very large set of people.

Edit: This was US based. I do not know what other countries were saying.

Was #1 a flat-out lie? I though the CDC said that "masks work" was a statement with insufficient peer-reviewed evidence for them to make it their official advice at the time, especially as they were cognizant that a run on masks could deny HCWs access to the tools of their trade. In other words, they were irresponsibly careful.

Tweet from Surgeon General, Feb 19th: "Seriously people - STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus..."; in a March 2nd interview he went further: "You can increase your risk of getting it by wearing a mask if you are not a healthcare provider." (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/surgeon-general-against-ma...)

Fauci in March: "Right now in the United States people should not be walking around with masks" (https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauci-masks-no-longer-need...).

Both continued with detail about saving masks for health professionals and added more context. However, both Adams and Fauci made statements in the early pandemic clearly stated that one shouldn't be wearing masks.

https://apnews.com/article/26f0cb8ed836a76f0e019357cbea7f58

> insufficient peer-reviewed evidence for them to make it their official advice at the time

masks for viral protection isn't a new topic, and plenty of research is available[0] -- unless you're talking about only viral research pertaining to covid-19, which is fairly over-specific to legislate against/towards.

in other words: it was understood in the general scientific and medical public that masks help to reduce or prevent spread of airborne virus, to claim that the government should have waited for specific research to a singular strain is both excusing a willfully in-active government and portraying that government as scientifically credible for doing the so.

These actions, given the evidence that already existed that masks provide a net benefit against viral pathogens, were scientifically unsound. If I had the complete picture that was available to the U.S. government then maybe I could justify the actions by knowing that a call to use masks would cause a profound shortage of PPE for those that needed it -- and I think that's exactly what happened: the government saw that a call to use masks would cause a lack of goods, so instead of looking entirely ignorant to the problem it was decided to latch onto the logic that covid-19 was somehow totally unlike any virus and that novel research would need to be undertaken in order to justify the need for masks.

It's my opinion that masks were already well-enough researched, and that the surrogate viruses that were used in this research prior to covid-19 were a 'good-enough' approximate to understand that masks would be a net social benefit, if available. It's my opinion that other co-factors that the government was privvy to influenced their decision to push against mask use temporarily in the beginning.

[0]: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=mask+efficacy+virus&hl=...

The CDC and the WHO were staunchly conservative about masks early in the pandemic. Much of the studies we had at the time lacked rigor to show that masks were effective for coronavirus and various parameters. As more and more data came out, they shifted their position.

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