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Comment by livinginfear | Hacker News Reader

I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement. Yet simultaneously there is ostensibly a high degree of trust in the motives and competency of the American government when it comes to COVID.

There's been multiple threads lately, including one that is on the front page as we speak, critical of the American surveillance state. The comments exhibit a high degree of distrust towards the FBI, NSA, and other law-enforcement institutions. This degree of distrust seems almost absolute, yet the word of the CDC seems to be taken as gospel, despite clear hints of politicization of the COVID crisis on their behalf.

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As a European I'm quite surprised how deep the conspiracy theories and suspicions against the state go in the US. You don't need tp take everything at face value, but to be so suspicious of essential institutions like the CDC seems crazy to me. Except for a vocal but tiny minority there's a lot of trust in the institutions of the EU and (Western) Europe, where citizrns at most worry about incompetence, not malicious manipulation. On the contrary societal trust in the US seems immensely low.

I think the CDC's original statements on masks (they aren't necessary, they're only effective at preventing the spread of COVID if the wearer has a medical degree, don't wear masks on planes, etc) contributed a lot to the distrust and politicization of mask wearing.

When you expect an institution to always be impartial and tell the truth, those sorts of white lies can quickly erode trust.

Please also note it is unnecessary to do any additional analysis to describe the example cited as a "lie." We know it was a deliberate lie because the then head of the CDC has said so [1] - unless he was lying about claiming he was lying there's not much doubt in that case. The CDC lie when it suits them isn't something that's really debatable.

Does it matter that they lied? This is the proposition that can be debated sensibly and rationally - but will likely be overwhelmed with emotion.

In my own observation there seems to be rather a lot of people who have almost no faith in their fellow humans and believe the only way "people" believe a thing and will act is because they have been told to believe it by someone. Misinformation takes all the blame in this paradigm. The populations is dominated by people who have outsourced their critical thinking.

It may be true, I don't know. But it seems to me to be really quite worrying if a population has to be told lies to get them to do the right thing or lies have to be censored because people will not be able to assess competing evidence and reject bullshit. Does it have to be this way? Was it always? Is it fixable? Is it really a thing at all? I have no answers there.

It's my observation that even in the service of "good", the debt to the truth always comes due and the interest rate is super steep. Many will disagree.

[1] Lack of PPE for medical professionals in the front line of pandemic response is the justification. This may well be a very good justification.

I know this gets repeated a lot, but that doesn't make it more true. Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks", and "we changed our message about masks" doesn't count.

The reality is that the knowledge about Covid changed significantly in march/April last year. In particular the understanding about unsymptomatic spread lead to a significant change of thinking. That makes sense, if the virus only spreads from sick people, the advice for everyone to wear a mask is not good health policy especially if there is a shortage. You want to prioritise people who get in contact with sick people and prevent sick people to go out. However, if unsymptomatic people spread the virus, you want everyone to wear masks, because you can't prevent spreaders to go out. But the masks are different, you want cloth masks more than n95, because it is about protecting others.

The below article is one which elaborates on the whole discussion

https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/29/did-...

If they didn't suspect that an "atypical pneumonia" as it was called since the beginning had an aereosol component a case can be made that they were unfit for their job

If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of that function

The other cases just convert into variations of them politicising a pandemic to unknown ends

As for the WHO, these organisations shouldn't have an easy way out of their responsibilities

Have you read what I wrote? Because you sure are not responding to it.

The “not aerosol“ hypothesis was based on the assumption that the spread rate would have been much higher than observed with an aerosol capable virus. Turns out this one just happened to be quite bad at spreading amongst humans, despite being capable of residing in the air for quite a while. It's rather unsurprising then that we now see many mutations that fix some low hanging fruit "bugs", bringing the spread closer to what people would have expected. Arguably hope may have been a factor in weighing that hypothesis, but that's truly nothing anyone should be blamed for.

pneumonia and influenza whose main transmission vector is contact:

Droplet is the "popular" middle ground. Contact is completely overshadowed by both types of air travel unless air travel is either completely out of the picture (non-respiratory viruses like various herpes) or if the virus particles excel at durability outside the body (e.g. the rhinovirus family, whereas being bad at this is an outcome of the defining property of corona viruses, they are short-"lived" almost by definition).

And droplet basically translates to: "yes, masks would help, but simply keeping a few feet of distance will be just as good". Unfortunately, distance does to aerosol transmission what soda cans do to a wildfire.

Im not saying what they did was right, but look at toilet paper. Obviously the masses cannot handle news that something is in short supply. The CDC knew that if they said, "masks work, there's not enough masks, don't buy them cause doctors need them" that 95% of America would hear only the first two clauses and go out to buy as many masks as possible. All the masks would disappear, there would be a panic and hysteria more than there already was, and doctors would end up worse off than before.

Look at the gas crisis in the south. It's obvious that enough of America truly _are_ "petulant children" as you say that they cannot be trusted with such information. Given an opportunity, the American people will choose to make the national situation worse, to improve their personal one.

I think the main disconnect here is that the CDC communicated like it's job was to say what was needed for the best possible outcome (and still made mistakes and miscalculations) while (some of) the people believe the CDCs job is to communicate the whole truth 100% of the time. We can see from looking back at literally any war or the 1918 flu pandemic that the populace is routinely lied to for the 'benefit' of the country. What is happening now is that we can instantly fact check and communicate to millions of people our opinions on what was said. I am not saying they were right to do it, but attempting to provide the framework in which is becomes believable that _they_ believed it was right to do it.

I’d say that what they did was right. The noble lie is by definition noble. The news media acting as (not always unwitting) accomplices is the real problem.

This advanced the short-term goal of keeping masks available to doctors at the expense of the long-term goal of maintaining their own credibility.

People tell me that I should trust those those who lie to me because at least their goals are honorable. I disagree. While it might be possible to lie to someone you trying to help or even someone you dearly love, it's pretty much by definition not something you do to someone you respect. I generally am wary of help from people who don't respect me.

Perhaps it would be helpful to have separate news channels for petulant children who need to be lied to so that they don't destroy civilization. Everyone else could watch the real news. Of course, nobody wants to be told they're a petulant child.

2 weeks of asymptomatic spread has been known about since late January (edit: in 2020). [0]

And Fauci said at one point (2/14/2020):

“There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” [1]

And at another point (6/15/2020):

"[...] we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N-95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply." [1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavi...

The director of the CDC during most of the pandemic was Robert Redfield. Dr. Fauci is director of the NIH, so his statements are not relevant to the credibility of the CDC.

In defense of Dr. Fauci's statement, saying "there is no reason right now to wear a mask" is quite different from "masks are ineffective", as it keeps getting paraphrased. The latter is obviously absurd, as there were numerous studies on the effectiveness of masks against various viruses prior to 2020, just not against SARS-CoV-2 specifically, since as far as we know it didn't exist yet.

Fauci, and way too many Medical Doctors, seemed guenuinly confused over the efficacy of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of he Covid virus.

A lot medical professionals were claiming the average person wearing a mask will make things worse by putting it on ineffectively.

I heard one doctor say, "All it takes is one virus particle to become infected. I haven't heard any doctor talk about Viral Loads, even now.

My point is our medical professionals seemed as much in the "I just don't know?" catagory as the rest of us with this virus.

I'm still shocked researchers found a vaccine.

Zeynep Tufekci published an excellent article about this. Her thesis is that medical dogma insisted COVID (and other infections) spread through droplets and not aerosols. Social distancing is enough to prevent infection from droplets because they don't travel far. That, it turns out, is wrong, and COVID can spread through smaller respiratory particles that can float, making social distancing alone ineffective.

https://www.theinsight.org/p/the-few-sentences-that-explain-...

There was information that it was aerosolized from the early days (March)

We were lied to because america did not stockpile enough masks for first responders

I don’t think it was that simple.

If the Wired article, which was downvoted to oblivion, is accurate then the WHO and the CDC (who parroted the WHO) bear a great deal of responsibility.

They shutdown scientists who were telling them that Covid was spreading as an aerosol, way back in early 2020.

The WHO now want MORE power, yet they’re not accepting accountability nor cleaning house.

I've read the article, I do just want to clarify the statement "making social distancing alone ineffective."

It's still true that if you are covid suceptible, and if a covid-shedding person is walking around, you should try to be as far as possible from the covid. But, a brief close pass e.g. on the sidewalk, isn't as risky as sharing a 20'x10' office for hours, even if you stay >6ft the entire time.

The strange thing is that we have loads of research done over decades about all of this. It appears that the prominent doctors on the news don't know anything about it. Everything pumped out for publicity is about a sixth grade understanding of biology and epidemiology; but we know a lot more, it's just that Fauci doesn't talk about it and neither does the nightly news. If the role of journalists and the government was to inform, we would have well written articles on the loads of studies we have.

Journalists should give advanced information in digestible form about topics you didn't need to know about, but which are currently relevant. Instead, we get sixth grade hand waving in propaganda form.

Things like adaptive immune response, T-cells, immune escape, antibody dependent enhancement, viral loads, and lots of other things could be explained well but simply. It's a tragedy of modernity that we have so much information and so little understanding.

People can spend their entire lives studying one tiny aspect of our immune system; there are so many interacting, irreducibly complex systems that the average layman can be overwhelmed.

But there are simple things that can be explained visually. See, for instance, this video of Japanese scientists illuminating airborne droplets with green lasers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyZm6dx9Hss

Now, the contention here isn't that there are important concepts that should be explained to layman; the contention here is that there are important concepts that actual scientists need to explain to the decision-makers at the CDC.

If you’re in the ‘I just don’t know?’ category, how is it defensible to force others to adhere to your apparently unfounded strategies?

Fauci had said the reason they made a misspeak about masks is because they were afraid there would not be enough for first responders

That sure helped the trust to CDC.

Trust in the CDC and Fauci only really declined among Republican voters (and was still high).

Sometimes, certain people being told not to trust you is a sign you're doing the right thing.

Inefficacy of masks is a central point in anti-maskers message, and sometimes they would cite you the whole passages from official WHO/CDC advisories. And the belated reversal is just an additional point to "scientists don't know shit" attitude.

No, yeah it did tremendous damage. While there'd certainly be anti maskers without anti-mask hysteria by authorities, the scale would not be the same. It's hard to quantify but likely many tens of thousands of excess deaths globally are on WHO lies.

"anti-mask hysteria by authorities"?

People were having difficulty providing evidence that Fauci admitted to telling a white lie elsewhere in these comments, yet it's widely believed by certain people that he did so.

There's a link to a factcheck in the comments that quotes what he actually said and it's not at all what many people in this thread seem to sincerely, but mistakenly, think he said.

So allow me to doubt that "anti-mask hysteria" was ever coming from the medical and scientific community unless I see exactly what you're talking about and evaluate it with my own eyes.

But I guess if we disagree on the facts, that helps explain why we draw different conclusions.

Do not confuse medical and scientific community with authorities. The ill advisory was coming from WHO and parroted by national authorities (including CDC). All while the efficacy of masks against airborne/pulmonary diseases was pretty much established. WHO is not a scientific body conducting independent research but a bureaucratic organization with heavy dose of politics.

However back in spring 2020 when the official position amounted to "a mask is a facehugger", arguing for using masks (including by medical professionals) was effectively impossible.

> in spring 2020 when the official position amounted to "a mask is a facehugger"

Well I guess it would be fruitless to ask for a source on this.

“There’s no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them,” Perencevich said, the publication reported. “They wear them incorrectly, and they can increase the risk of infection because they’re touching their face more often.”

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article240...

"Masks may actually increase your coronavirus risk if worn improperly, surgeon general warns"

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-co...

It was literally everywhere until correction in april 2020.

I think we watched different versions of the Alien(s) franchise. Did they retcon that in the prequels?

Don't let that facehugger insert a parasite embryo down your throat! Why not? Well overall it would be more beneficial to society if frontline medical staff were wearing that facehugger while treating patients with confirmed or suspected cases of the virus. Oh okay, that seems sensible.

You're just being intentionally obtuse. This attitude is exactly why it's pointless to list sources to pretend-inquisitive strangers on the Internet.

I honestly don't understand which bit of this quote, from your own source you don't understand:

“Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” he wrote. “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!”

Is he saying that N95 masks don't work at all? That they only magically work for healthcare professionals?

Or is he very, very, clearly, even within the limited confines of a tweet, explaining that N95 masks are better allocated to frontline medical staff than being randomly worn by low risk people in low risk locations doing low risk tasks? That using those resources more effectively will save more lives and that people in those lowee risk situations can easily get protection by keeping a safe distance and following other sensible precautions that they list.

I can see how someone could intentionally misrepresent what he says, but I don't see an honest way to make that mistake.

I don't think I ever challenged the plausible intent of the lie (to avoid shortages). That does not stop a lie being a lie, with long term, serious harm.

The masks ARE effective in prevention COVID (both ways), and there is no demonstrated risk in wearing masks wrong. They lied on both accounts providing fuel to anti-masker movement. And yes the logical inconsistency of insisting masks are ineffective yet are necessary to frontline workers were pointed out year ago - you're not breaking any fresh ground here.

You do not speak for most Democrats.

I’m a Democrat; my circle is mostly Democrats. We also knew last year in February and March that we wanted masks.

So trust that Fauci meant well? Yes. He was in an extremely difficult position and in a position of policy advisor.

But trudt that masks were ineffective for the average person? Absolutely not.

It’s a contradiction that masks are effective for frontlines, yet somehow without reason or usefulness for everyone else.

So if it didn’t decline, perphaps it’s more accurate to say that there was only ever a certain type of trust to begin with.

And the past 12 months have borne out that suspicion.

I'm not a Democrat, which shouldn't really matter. I'm just relaying what actual surveys found, they were regularly asking questions about who was a trusted source of information on COVID and reporting on trends. Feel free to Google for them if you can't accept what I said as plausible.

I can’t accept your assertion because the polls say some very different.

For example: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/health/2021/04/26/poll-...

Despite Fauci assuring that the J&J is safe, people are still very hesitant.

Which means the trust extended to Fauci only goes so far.

So while you want to paint a broad stroke of “Democrats trust” vs “Republicans don’t”, the reality is far more nuanced.

It wasn't a "misspeak" it was a lie. He admitted it was a lie, and that he knew it was lie. If he wanted to give the Gov and CDC any credibility then he should have been honest about the need to reserve masks for health care professionals and urged people not to buy them and make home-made one instead. There is no valid excuse "I was lying for the greater good", that is bullshit.

https://medium.com/p/4ef05aa357c5

> In defense of Dr. Fauci's statement, saying "there is no reason right now to wear a mask" is quite different from "masks are ineffective"

If masks are effective, that would be a compelling reason for someone to wear a mask. Saying there is no reason to wear a mask, strongly implies that they aren't beneficial to the individual wearing them. Fauci must have known that this is how people would have interpreted his statements. He should have said "there are very compelling reasons not to wear a mask", which is very different from "there is no reason to wear a mask".

I understand that Fauci had good intentions behind his statement. But it's very hard to regain trust after making misleading statements like the above.

> “There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask”

Isn’t this defensible if it was indeed true that there was a temporary shortage of masks for health care workers?

I think no. It erodes trust in medical institutions, and now we reap what was sown.

The same thing was done in other countries, including mine (Finland). Result: covid deniers are still using the year-old statements from national health agency to downplay the significance of masks.

"Masks are useless; the officials themselves say so", they quote.

Big mistake not to be honest, even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.

>even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.

There's your issue. Saying masks are in short supply begs the question of why. Whether it's reasonable or not, no politician wants to defend their unpreparedness.

If that was their reason, then why did the change the recommendation while still in the middle of the shortage? Here's an article from months after the CDC started recommending masks, showing that widespread PPE shortages among healthcare workers were still common[1].

There seems to be a lot of post hoc rationalization for what appears to simply be a mistake. This is why accountability is so difficult. People decide ahead of time that certain organizations or individuals are right. If it looks like they made a mistake, then there must be some good reason that justifies their actions that we just don't see.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shorta...

Wasn’t the PPE shortage and the initial recommendation for the public to not wear masks both mostly about N95 masks? From what I remember, by the time CDC was recommending masks for the public it was all about the simple cloth masks, which I don’t think I ever saw in stores before the pandemic and presumably don’t compete much with N95 masks for medical professionals.

No, because ultimately the lie will be exposed and then your credibility is (rightly!) done for.

> the lie will be exposed and then your credibility is (rightly!) done for.

The wording here is good because we _should_ be skeptical towards any organization that is supposed to protect our citizenry, but unflinchingly lied to the entire population/world. Government has powers so that that it can control society. Why did the CDC need to lie and mislead people instead of finding a way to restrict the flow and supply of masks? The sad thing is that it would even be more forgivable if they were just completely incompetent and made a wildly incorrect guess. But they knowingly and deliberately lied in possibly the worst scenario to lie during.

What I’m saying is that this particular claim was not a lie, if it was true that the general public wearing masks would lead to a worse public health outcome due to a shortage of masks for medical workers.

Yes.

Back in January 2020 for every medical authority saying that the virus is airborne there was at least one saying: We expect this to be similar to a harsh flu season at worst, at best the virus will burn out locally.

It takes time for knowledge to get formulated, broadly accepted, and turn into actual policy. It has to be like that. Most of the time, being prepared but doing nothing is the best thing to.

SARS, H1N1, Ebola + probably many others all burned out before they reached the west.

Have you ever heard of Aumann's Agreement Theorem? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem

If scientists are looking at the same data and the same set of facts, then they cannot disagree.

Back when Hong Kong health authorities were warning about 14 days of asymptomatic spread, Chinese authorities had already placed multiple cities under martial law and set up concentration camps for infected people. It's absurd that the West was still in a "wait-and-see" mindset.

Was it a disinformation campaign from China funneled through Hong Kong or was it actually a breakout. We didnt know if the martial law was out of caution, China only reported 80k infections.

Lots of assumptions went wrong on this one

Nice way of taking both quotes out of context. The link I provided has the full quote. He was essentially saying what I said above: it is unclear if it makes public health sense for everyone to wear a mask, in particular we have a shortage of masks so we should prioritise health workers, there is nothing wrong with wearing a mask though.

Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus). The various health organizations simply decided to prioritize supply for the medical community till production could ramp up by making statements that dissuade people from panic buying (as happened with say Toilet paper and flour later). While it's understandable, it doesn't make the early statements not "lies" and erosion in trust is a consequence.

> Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus)

We have a lot of research into mask use, both to protect the wearer and to protect people around the wearer.

Can you point to any that you think CDC should have been using to support mask wearing in the general public?

You can argue about the level of evidence required (organisations like CDC strongly prefer well run meta analyses or a bunch of RCTs), but to say "it's always been known" simply isn't true.

I'd argue it has always been known that masks would protect both patients and wearers even from first principles and also how past pandemics with a less infectious virus were handled in Asia and from how common cold and flu dropped as a side effect.

The virus spreads via droplets exhaled or emitted from nose and mouth. What happens when something obstructs that flow - the % of droplets going in & out & velocity decreases and likelihood of transmission reduces. Why do you think surgeons wear masks - it's both to protect the patient and the surgeon from droplet borne infections.

What was unknown was whether it was economical to wear masks widely and whether there were supplies, not that it would work.

> Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks"

The Street: "So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?"

Fauci: "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."

https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

As a Daoist, this is the important point.

"Not to value and employ men of superior ability is the way to keep the people from rivalry among themselves; not to prize articles which are difficult to procure is the way to keep them from becoming thieves; not to show them what is likely to excite their desires is the way to keep their minds from disorder. Therefore the sage, in the exercise of his government, empties their minds, fills their bellies, weakens their wills, and strengthens their bones. He constantly (tries to) keep them without knowledge and without desire, and where there are those who have knowledge, to keep them from presuming to act (on it). When there is this abstinence from action, good order is universal."

- Dao De Jing, Chapter 3, The Chinese Text Project

I feel we are at the end result of "keeping those who have knowledge from acting on it". Misinformation is spread by people with the knowledge of how to control people and they tell people they are smart and they need to act.

I do not agree with Fauci's decision, but there was no other choice.

Look at what happened with the gas panic this week, it is the same thing was written about here:

https://songofthedao.substack.com/p/panic-at-the-gas-station

Exactly this. I normally would agree with folks saying that the CDC has little reason to be dishonest, but with COVID in particular, we see enough historical reversal to cause at least some uncertainty around their guidance.

Plus, it also makes sense, if their and the government’s interests are for the greater good. E.g. being cautious about promoting early use of masks when supplies were scarce/preserving them for the front line medical workers.

Theoretically it would also make sense for current guidance to incentivize vaccines when the remaining unvaccinated population is hesitant.

To be clear, I’m not saying I have certainly that this is what’s happening. But the theories aren’t unreasonable, and CDC’s past reversal on guidance doesn’t help the confidence others have in their guidance.

So the uncertainty isn’t completely unreasonable.

I had COVID in NYC in Feb, the only way to get a test was to claim you just flew from Wuhan. Which even if you did, I have no idea how they were setup to respond.

Everyone else in the hotel was sick, there was a tensor of coughing, all I could do was sit in my hotel room and watch politicians go back and forth about how we should all patronize stores in Chinatown and not be horrible racists.

All I can say is the is that the CDC performed extremely poorly in their response to this, over and over again. Mishandling tests, allowing the FDA to actively block testing. Even the pausing of the J&J vaccine was an extreme CYA blunder.

NASA had Challenger, NIST had Dual_EC_DRBG and the CDC had COVID. Not the same in scope, but the systemic dysfunction was similar in its structure.

I don't blame the professionals for getting things wrong on this.

My personal feeling is that it was hard to know if masks worked for the general populace before Covid-19.

There are so many confounding variables that it very difficult to study masks from a public health side.

The best approximation was studies of health professionals in hospitals or clinics which doesn't exactly translate for a multitude of reasons.

To be honest, we still don't really know if masks work. They look like they probably do something, but the evidence is weak and the effect size small.

It's totally worth it to bend an exponential function. But the individual benefit from mask wearing in any given interaction is negligible.

Which leads to huge arguments which really benefits nobody as we just establish that we disagree.

Common sense seems to say that masks make s difference, but if that is the strongest argument, then why not let people decide for themselves using common sense.

Because if you get it wrong, lots of people die, so you err on the side of caution.

Mere common sense? I wouldn't characterize it that way.

The wearing of masks to combat airborne disease spread is a decidedly not a new thing. That was never a novel concept, at least since the early part of the 20th century.

Coronaviruses in general aren't a novel concept either; we have a pretty good idea how they're spread.

So, when confronted with a new coronavirus, it's a little bit stronger than "common sense" to surmise that masks will be effective to some extent. The burden of proof would be on anybody suggesting that this virus is somehow so different than other airborne disease that the wearing of masks had no benefit.

    then why not let people decide for themselves using common sense.

If masks are not effective, the downside to wearing masks was that we waste a relatively modest amount of time and money on masks and perhaps damage our credibility in the future when we recommend their use.

If masks are effective to some degree, the downside to not wearing masks was that millions of additional people would suffer and die worldwide, and we would incur a financial and human cost orders of magnitude greater than the modest cost of masks.

Common sense comes up with the wrong answer here. The individual benefit was likely very small. The cumulative effect over many weeks on buildup in cases is much larger.

Part of the problem is that the American media spread misinformation about the effectiveness of masks for political gain. For example, I remember the New York Times pushing the idea that vaccines would be less effective than mask wearing even though all evidence suggested that even a vaccine which met the minimum standards for approval would likely be substantially more effective than mask wearing, seemingly because Trump supported vaccines but not masks.

    seemingly because Trump supported vaccines but 
    not masks.

I read both conservative and liberal media and have never seen it suggested that masks were somehow better than vaccines.

First I must strongly state that the idea itself makes no sense: one can wear a mask and be vaccinated; they're not competing ideas in any meaningful way.

However, at the outset of COVID-19, we certainly were not sure that there would be effective vaccines, or how long they might take to develop, or what their supply levels would be.

Therefore it made sense to take whatever (effective) measures we could, while waiting for a vaccine that was never guaranteed to exist. Nobody argues that a fire extinguisher is better than a squad of professional firefighters, but fire extinguishers can have important utility, especially while you're waiting for help to arrive.

As far as the Trump angle, perhaps you can show us a counter example, but I have seen zero evidence that anti-Trump folks have rejected vaccines because Trump favored them. It's a non-factor.

One, the liberal/progressive/whatever crowd is overwhelmingly pro-vaccination (in general) to begin with. Two, and perhaps more importantly, they're just not competing with masks in any way. Masks are imperfect; vaccines are more effective but also imperfect and not approved for all people even today. That is how you deal with many if not most threats in the real world: multiple layers of imperfect defences.

To be fair, doing the exact opposite of what Trump supports is a good rule of thumb if you have no other info or expertise to go on.

Though in this particular case, I don't really remember him being all that positive about vaccines for Covid or in general.

Here's a publication worrying about him undermining vaccines before Covid was a thing: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5678397/

Which is another data point to support the general principle.

There was a period in time where it was disclosed that the vaccines might have an efficacy of 40% or 50%.

In this case, the combination of masks and vaccines might have been required for a long time.

(hacker news analogy: "just in case Rust doesn't remove all defects, we are still going to need to debug"

Can you point me toward some of that research?

There's a massive number of studies. A selection of 3 links out of 100+ would only reveal my biases. I'd rather just discuss my summation of the research and if there's something in particular you'd like to see, share that.

* Various studies of droplet propagation, which show well-fitting masks reduce droplets significantly. In theory, this should reduce spread.

* Many confounded observational and cohort studies tied to voluntary compliance with mask guidelines that show a lower risk of infection or secondary transmission. They are confounded because voluntary compliance with this measure increases the likelihood of general caution. Many show somewhat large effect sizes.

* Many population based trend-line studies/other ecological studies that show post requiring it as a public health measure in various environments, that daily case counts began to decline by .4% to 2.0% per day.

The studies in the second category showing larger effects are generally inconsistent with the third category, because the results in the third would be much bigger if the effect was real. And even the third category isn't great, because the mask requirement measures weren't instituted in a vacuum independent of other controls.

Do the studies in the third category account for compliance?

I wonder if we’re splitting hairs, so what if mask wearing is confounded with other voluntary measures of general caution?

For me the take away is that some people take precaution, and some don’t.

One of the studies was an ecological study comparing mask wearing rates in many locales (some with compulsory requirements, and some without) and their change over time vs. disease growth rates.

Another measured case growth in a hospital community where there was a very strictly enforced mandate for patients compared to the rate of case growth before, so compliance is a small factor.

It's very likely that masks help. It's also very likely that the effect is relatively small. But even a tiny effect can become a big one when raised to a big power-- 1.1^20 is 6.7x growth in cases, and 1.07^20 is 3.8x.

I'd have liked this guidance change in masks to come a week or two later. Keeping another couple weeks of somewhat sharper decline in cases means a lot fewer people affected through the rest of the pandemic.

Your conclusions here don’t really seem in line with your comment about still not knowing if masks work.

Not sure why you feel like this is a worthy hair to split.

This kind of attitude is why the western response could have been better. Western medicine is hews rigorously close to the “do no harm” ideal and interpret it that you need to have conclusive evidence before recommending a treatment, even something as harmless as mask wearing.

In Asian countries they just do it and so what if it hasn’t been demonstrated as a causal factor in a dozen studies.

Lay people see the indecision, the hemming and hawing, the hand wringing.

The cdc says shit like people shouldn’t wear masks.

This shit is actively harmful and thousands of people have died because of it.

We have confounded evidence of a weak effect. If I had to bet (and we all have had to), I'd say they do have a small benefit on a population scale. But if more evidence showed up saying they didn't, I would be completely unsurprised.

I think it's worthwhile to have doubt and be skeptical.

I'll note that, at the beginning of the pandemic, I was saying that masks may or may not work, but they should still be recommended at a time that the CDC was implying that they might even be harmful.

This is all completely consistent with what I originally said: "To be honest, we still don't really know if masks work. They look like they probably do something, but the evidence is weak and the effect size small."

> they aren't necessary, they're only effective at preventing the spread of COVID if the wearer has a medical degree, don't wear masks on planes, etc

Everyone seems to also forget that a lot of this took place when they wrongly thought surface transmission was the main vector. The bigger problem was the delay in recognizing aerosol transmission, Chinese scientists cottoned on to this very early but the CDC and WHO dragged their feet.

We also saw everything play out and get politicized in real time in a way that's never happened before. There are lags between data and science, further lags between science and science communication and then even more from science communication to government policy. On one end of this lag you've got scientist warning of aerosol transmission, on the other side you've got Fauci still operating under the surface transmission advice leading to some very mixed messaging. Reducing this lag will be important in future.

> Chinese scientists cottoned on to this very early

China didn't even admit human to human transmission until mid January.

They haven't even admitted when the outbreak started, which almost certainly wasn't November 2019 since there are suspect cases in Europe already at the beginning of December, of people that had never been in Wuhan.

> China didn't even admit human to human transmission until mid January.

Because it was even newer and more unknown at that point. Wuhan was in lockdown on the 23rd of January, so they had a pretty good idea by then. Meanwhile the rest of the world twiddled their thumbs and lost the opportunity to contain it.

> They haven't even admitted when the outbreak started, which almost certainly wasn't November 2019

How do you "admit" something unknown? Either way we know it couldn't have been too much before November/December, considering everything we know about how fast it spreads.

> How do you "admit" something unknown? Either way we know it couldn't have been too much before November/December, considering everything we know about how fast it spreads.

Actually, this is not so clear. The evidence of community cases in November/December in e.g. France were not picked up at the time either. There is a phase were a new disease can fly completely under the radar, because we are still in a very slow growth and only see a few isolated cases, which often don't even get seen by the same health professionals. This is particularly true in the case of covid were there is evidence that spreading is disproportionately from "superspreaders" (unless some of that information changed now?). So unless there was a superspreader, you only have few isolated cases.

If that's the case then China doesn't even have anything to admit, it could have come Frome anywhere.

Everything points at Wuhan currently. That’s not even a question at this point

It wasn't completely under the radar though. Doctors in China were thinking it was a "mere" SARS outbreak, which was fairly close to correct. However concern about public health was not the top priority of the govt.

Taiwan was pretty sure there was human to human transmission on Dec 31, 2019 after their secretary of health had been in Wuhan for a week or so, so China most likely had figured it out at least a month earlier. Maybe they hid it because were too busy jailing doctors?

> there are suspect cases in Europe already at the beginning of December, of people that had never been in Wuhan.

If this is true, then it's not a given that COVID-19 even originated in China.

It's not a given, but it's also not a given that it originated in Europe or anywhere else for that matter. Plane travel makes it possible for a virus to be anywhere in the world on the same day.

Two patients with SARS-CoV-2 in France[0] on November 16, one in China[1] on November 17, and the whole epidemic in Russia[2] on November 19.

This new study of scanners identified two cases of suspected coronavirus, on November 16 and 17

[0]: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/sante/maladie/coronavirus/corona...

China’s first confirmed Covid-19 case traced back to November 17

[1]: https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074991/coro...

The outbreak of pneumonia was recorded in the Orenburg region

(Turn on captions, then select Captions -> Automatic translation -> English)

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMh11FtfaP0

The not-China origin idea is fringe at the moment.

Chinese scientists figured out that most colds, flu, and other respiratory illnesses spread through aerosols back in 2003 during the SARS outbreak, if I understand this article correctly: https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwu...

Meh, I understand your point, but as someone who follows the conspiratorial world passively, I can tell you the whole 'but they told you masks were useless' thing is a post-facto rationalization to gain some common ground with the less conspiratorial people.

In reality, the usual suspects were pushing conspiracy theories about the CDC even before they determined masks were useful. A famous conspiracy peddler famously claimed the CDC was downplaying how bad the virus was and 'it was over for humanity, it'll only be lone survivors' when we only had a handful of cases in the US.

In other words: the CDC could've nailed every single guideline and we'd still have half of the population making up conspiracy theories about it. It's just too politically convenient.

> I can tell you the whole 'but they told you masks were useless' thing is a post-facto rationalization to gain some common ground with the less conspiratorial people.

So is the post-facto realization of "we knew masks work, we just didn't want the people to grab all the supply".

As I explained in another post, originally the consensus was that only N95 masks were somewhat effective. There were no studies on the effectiveness of other masks.

Recommending people use masks could've given people a false sense of security in people and probably acted against more effective measures such as social distancing and self-quarantining of people with symptoms matching those of Covid-19 ('well, I know I have a cough, but I'll just wear a mask and it'll be fine').

Recommending people use the only masks we knew to somewhat work - N95s - would've created a huge problem for hospitals that already were having issues procuring PPE to protect the professionals who were dealing with Covid-19 patients.

Basically, there was no reason for the CDC to recommend masks. Again, there's no need for some nefarious explanation.

That's an oversimplification. The first thing to consider is that there's two types of masks:

* N95 masks

* Everything else

We knew N95 masks worked because that's what professionals use in hospitals. Unfortunately, there was a shortage of PPE so telling people to buy them would put them in direct competition with professionals treating very sick patients. In April 2020 we were looking at a really bleak scenario so there was a very strong incentive to keep professionals alive even if it came at the expense of some citizens (think: doomsday scenario).

We also had no idea whether 'everything else' helped at all. Recommending non-N95 use might have given people a false sense of security that might have played against more effective measures such as extreme social distancing and self-quarantining of people with symptoms.

As knowledge improved, guidance changed. Nothing crazy to see here.

This, so much this! I had a friend (who unfortunately has become completely lost to conspiracies) tell me, that the German government was incompetent because they did not take the virus serious enough and that covid was overblown and much less severe than the flu, in the same argument! When I pointed out the contradiction he said "you just think there is a contradiction because you have been indoctrinated by the MSM".

The exact same thing is happening with the mask discussion. The people who say the CDC lied about masks and it was obvious that they help, are the same who strongly refuse to wear them because it's a security theatre. It's completely dishonest argumentation.

It's honestly been fascinating to watch the conspiracy world twist themselves into logical pretzels to fit their narrative to both reality and the political landscape. At some point, Alex Jones - who unfortunately is a weather vane for all the crap circulating in the conspiracy world - claimed the following within the span of a month:

* The virus is lethal and the government is hiding it

* The virus is just the common cold and tests are a conspiracy to make Trump look bad

* The virus is lethal and a conspiracy by dark forces to kill people

* The virus doesn't exist and people wearing masks are idiots

* The virus is lethal (again!) and a conspiracy by the Chinese to destroy the world's economy

It's no surprise that people who are marginally sucked into the conspiracy world have their brains completely fried by the constant narrative shift.

The Dutch CDC (RIVM) made the same statements. As a result, people don't really believe in masks here either, but it not a big political issue. I am not sure why the mask became such a symbol for the corona measures in the US, but not here.

Your population no doubt trusts government a lot more. Also republicans here more or less turned trump into a Messianic figure and quit listening to science. It’s getting scary over here to be honest

It’s just that most people don’t really care about wearing a mask in a supermarket and those that do don’t really get bothered with it when they refuse. But it does polarize society between people who love pointing their fingers at others who don’t adhere to their favorite mitigation strategy (‘they’re killing grandma’, ‘If only they had done X’). And of course masks are a pretty visible virtue signal.

People are a lot more critical about the other rules, the curfews, the ban on outdoor dining and bars and the closure of sports facilities. And the ‘you can’t have more than one person over’ rule is generally ignored.

By the way the official Dutch position still is that surface transmission is significant and one of the three ‘main rules’ is to wash your hands a lot.

All national authorities did this, because the advice originated at WHO.

Because "Freedom".

Seriously. I have explained this many times to my European friends. It is difficult to appreciate how people here will always want to push their own personal freedom of choice out as far as they can no matter how much someone else suffers.

This is unfairly downvoted. Much of the cultural indoctrination of Americans was to create a population that could go out and invade territory and commit genocide, which leads directly to this kind of antisocial behavior.

Thank you for this. The fact that I’m getting downvoted on this scares me and makes me want to quit everything and hide.

>I am not sure why the mask became such a symbol for the corona measures in the US, but not here.

Because Donald Trump wanted to downplay the potential scale of the pandemic, believing it distracted from his narrative of economic success playing into his re-election, so he attributed reporting on the pandemic to a "Democratic hoax," feeding into right-wing mistrust of the motives behind both mainstream media reportage and legal measures like lockdowns, which many considered unconstitutional and a pretext for installing a leftist police state.

Also because Trump refused to wear a mask publicly, considering it a display of weakness in front of the "liberal media" which he considered to be the enemy, and would often ridicule people who did wear a mask.

As a result, among Trump supporting Republicans, wearing a mask became associated with sheep-like submission to "leftist' (read: Democratic) authoritarianism, and not wearing a mask became a display of defiance along with the MAGA caps.

It is impossible to consider the phenomenon of the way masks are perceived in the US today outside of the context of the atmosphere of deep paranoia, polarization, mistrust of the press and "international" organizations created by the Trump administration, or the effect of conspiracy theories and misinformation spread across social media by QAnon and Trump supporters.

Lying to the public should be a jailable crime. That would greatly increase trust in public institutions.

One need only go back about 80 years to find horrific abuses by public health officials in both Europe and America (e.g. involuntary sterilization, to say nothing of Nazi experimentation). What I find strange is that Europeans have such a short memory regarding these things…

Unfortunately involuntary sterilizations were happening more recently than 80 years ago too.

Virginia's compulsory sterilization law was repealed in 1974[1].

Oregon performed its last compulsory sterilization in 1981[2].

Japan didn't abolish compulsory sterilization until 1996[3].

There are reports that detained immigrants were involuntarily sterilized in 2020 in the US[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization#Unite...

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3952537/

You don't have to go back far at all to find corporations doing evil either, and yet America forgets how bad they are on a daily basis.

This is not entirely true. All the political parties and ideas from back then are gone. The government was replaced completely multiple times and time has changed to the better. IMO the past is not hidden at all in fact we are regularly reminded about all these things, we just embrace our better future.

Are they? There's plenty of far-right parties in Europe, some of which have even entered into governments or came close to it. And in any case the core threat isn't fascism per se, but the darker aspects of human nature which remain unchanged. The USA after all didn't have a fascist government in that time period but nevertheless performed widespread involuntary sterilizations. More relevant to the circumstances under consideration, the CDC itself performed secret experiments on human subjects as recently as the 1970's--infecting black men with syphilis without their knowledge, just to watch the results. Or the 1980's when the FDA an CDC turned their back on AIDS victims for political reasons, because it was largely gay men who were dying.

Europeans seem to think that they are above all this and such atrocities could never, ever happen again. But history shows otherwise, and human nature remains the same. Checks and balances and eternal vigilance is how you make sure it really doesn't happen, which requires the belief that it seriously can happen again.

As said I don't think Europeans generally think that way. We are very aware about things that happened, sometimes more sometimes less, but we have a long history we are not always proud of and build our future based on that knowledge.

We do not have, and also never really had, this kind of far right here in Switzerland. Our most right party is very liberal. I think you are generalizing Germany to Europe.

France and the UK have far-right parties that poll well, as did Sweden recently. It’s not just Germany.

>What I find strange is that Europeans have such a short memory regarding these things…

Everyone knows about these things. By everyone I mean everyone who went to the same schools as me.

Knowledge is not emotional, empathy is.

Don't forget the Tuskagee Study: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

I think this stems from the perception that the US federal government is monolithic, secretive, and imperceptible. The reality is that it's wildly diverse, staffed by "everyday" Americans, takes place almost entirely in the open, and very knowable (even if there is complexity -- just like computers). In the same way that many modern humans have grown distant from "nature," Americans have grown distant from our own government. I knew few Americans who truly believe our government is of the people, by the people, for the people. It's sad. :(

From and outside perspective this government you are describing is only hard to visualize. For years now voting comes down to the lesser of two evils where everywhere else in the world new parties form and establish new ideas America still has two of them only, kinda. As Swiss it's also far from our understanding what democracy is supposed to be.

A ton of Americans think of it as a lesser of two evils; because many (most?) Americans have the luxury of being comfortable. They don’t really think about politics, they don’t really have policy wants/needs. It’s just sensationalism on Facebook and celebrity on Instagram. It’s more about sports-team tribalism than participating in a society. At the risk of sounding morose, I don’t know where we go from here. Everyone, myself included, is going insane.

Here is a good read on where it goes: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/09/magazine/trump-coup.html

All I know is that there is no way that I am going to be physically in the US for the next presidential election(s), if there is a neoliberal political candidate in that election.

You’re not worried about neoliberalism than Trumpism? Lol

even if people cared a lot, you think they’d get presidential primary candidates that they want? or a vice president that they want? these things are faze choices.

For what it’s worth, I did have a candidate in the primary that I liked a lot. I think all of my friends did too. They didn’t get elected, but I also did nothing outside of casting the ballot to help get them elected.

(And, part of caring a lot is paying attention to the other 99% of elected positions)

It's interesting to consider how those primary candidates got there and to what extent it would be possible to change who shows up in that position.

Check out "Hate, Inc." by Matt Taibbi. He details the process by which party bosses essentially determine the primary field (and have done so for decades), and the media complex reinforces these choices using terms like "electable" or "wise choice" or "stubborn" or "off reservation".

Yes, this is only about the single off of the President (the Vice President choice is even less available to the people), but there is something to be said about the most visible and paid-attention-to office being the one that is categorically the least in the hands of the people. ...yet nobody seems to mention it.

There is a political duopoly in this country that has a democracy-murdering stranglehold and barely anyone is aware of it.

Even thought it's the most obvious thing ever. It's really hard to understand as a bystander

this is a great summary: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/politics-industry/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

This was ended only 50 years ago. Suspicion of the CDC is not crazy if they've pulled this sort of shit within living memory.

Didn’t the Panama Papers affect your trust at all?

I find that surprising.

It's pretty clear the EU health regulatory agencies aren't much better.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

500 to 2000 people died in France because the regulatory authorities choose to ignore multiple warning signs the drug has issues.

Maybe you shouldn't be so trusting?

It's not like we expect everything to go perfectly. I do trust that bureaucrats and officials are competent with good intentions though.

I do trust the police, tax authorities, medical authorities, statistics department. I even trust the politicians work towards their stated goals and ideals, each aiming for what they consider the best for the country.

I'm from the Nordics, with a pretty good track record of honesty and societal trust. I would find that continuous mistrust immensely tiring. That would just be a sad, sad world.

It might be a sad world but it’s reality. Better than pretending your politicians are altruistic.

Because our government has been caught many many times lying to us. In particular the CIA and various police organizations are constantly covering their asses. In general when the CDC goofs that’s just what happens, diseases and health is hard, but I don’t recall a lot of reports where they were actively murdering people

The mistrust runs in both directions (although the timbre is different). I believe that the CDC has had nothing but the best of intentions throughout the pandemic, but it's clear that they don't really trust US citizens enough to say what they really think. They see us through the lens of management; e.g., "How do we manage these people?"

Now, it's perhaps inevitable that they would use that lens, but it seems like it's the only lens they use.

Perhaps they're even right -- perhaps the average US citizen really is selfish and lacking in independent critical thinking skills, and perhaps we can't be trusted with the truth. But it means that anyone who knows better is constantly trying to read between the lines.

I blame the pervasive PR culture in the US, as well as basic stuff like a shit education system.

I think that, considering the mandate of the CDC, a certain amount of cynical understanding of the average American in its messaging is the only practical thing to do. That's a really tough line to take, and I do not envy the PR guys that have to negotiate it.

You may not like this, but what it boils down to (as you indicated) is that unless you can improve the average American through education or cultural shift, you've got this pretty grim baseline. The PR culture is a response to that reality.

It's also worth pointing out that, in a world where the Web is so pervasive, being honest (and, in particular, developing a reputation for being honest) has substantial advantages. Conspiracy theories and general suspicion spread extremely easily these days. If you ask the average American about the CDC today, I guarantee you a lot of them will mention the fact that the CDC initially said masks were unnecessary, and that they have since admitted that they were lying to protect supplies for healthcare workers.

Does that mean that being honest is necessarily always the best thing to do? I'm not sure. It's worth considering. But I suspect that it will take a while for that kind of understanding to make headway in the higher levels of government.

(This goes with the caveat that people and organizations who simply lie all the time can get away with it. Basically, you either have to live firmly in reality, or you have to sell a version of the real world that's been thoroughly modified in order to conform to some vision. Living mostly in reality while occasionally lying is becoming an untenable strategy.)

It's called low trust society.

Its a thing :https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_soc...

As an American, I'm surprised by the LACK of anger and distrust towards the EU by Europeans, specifically in the wake of the vaccine fiasco where the EU was so dramatically behind in procuring and administering vaccines to the population.

But yes, I agree that the skepticism of the Federal government in the US is far too skewed towards assumptions of malevolence, when it really should be skewed towards incompetence.

If you've ever travelled to the US, it's absolutely embarrassing how incompetent and awful of an experience it is to enter the country. Compared to when I go to basically ANY other country, the US customs personnel are rude, unprofessional, and just outright incompetent. It's such a massive difference in experience that you it slaps you in the face, every time.

Instead of a debate limited to how big or small the Federal government in the US should be, we should be having a debate about how efficient it is. We don't, due to the absurd, theatrical polarization we have baked into our system.

This zeitgeist goes back to the creation of America: the people were mistreated by the monarchy. Distrust and accountability to the government is baked into the American constitution (that accountability has succeeded in some areas, as much as it has failed in others).

It seems that many confuse science for government, which is understandable given the very recent muzzling of science for political gain.

Fauci's facial expressions during and after the recent regime have been a pretty good litmus for me: he's a scientist that's bad a hiding his emotions. That allows me to figure out when to trust what him and his colleagues want to, or have been forced to, say.

"...to be so suspicious of essential institutions like the CDC seems crazy to me."

To NOT be suspicious of institutions, essential or not, seems crazy to me. As Adam Smith said:

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

"It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. A regulation which obliges all those of the same trade in a particular town to enter their names and places of abode in a public register, facilitates such assemblies. . . . A regulation which enables those of the same trade to tax themselves in order to provide for their poor, their sick, their widows, and orphans, by giving them a common interest to manage, renders such assemblies necessary. An incorporation not only renders them necessary, but makes the act of the majority binding upon the whole."

– Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapter X.

I personally follow the CDC guidelines. I think if everyone equally trusted CDC we wouldn't have the kind of outbreaks that we have seen in the past year. So raising doubts in CDC's credibility overall is hurtful IMO. That doesn't mean we shouldn't debate a particular recommendation and take it all as Gospel. Meaningful debate about a particular issue is useful. A general statement against credibility of CDC IMO is not.

I maybe a minority here though, because I also to a large degree trust other American institutions. And that's coming from an immigrant who grew up in a country where the population is bombarded with anti-American conspiracy theories on a daily basis. The reason that I believe in American institutions is not because I take their words as Gospel. But because I believe for the most part trusting them leads to better results than the other way around.

The CDC/surgeon general recommended not wearing masks at the beginning of the pandemic, while Silicon Valley was way ahead of the curve (meanwhile hit pieces were posted by journalists with an axe to grind saying they we’re overreacting).

So yes it has lost its credibility.

This is the citation I found for this claim:

https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/04/06/the-cdc-now-recommend...

Overall, science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works. This is no different in my mind than the gradual change in the recommendations towards cigarette smoking over the decades, only in this case it played out over weeks and months (that article was from April of 2020).

If you want something infallible and written in stone from day 1, that's what religious texts are for. But to claim that scientists lost credibility because new research led them to change their minds is to misunderstand the purpose of science.

Masks weren't a mysterious new invention that the CDC just learned about at the start of the pandemic.

> science is a process. If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works.

CDC is a public health organization, not a science making organization. Its responsibility is to make the competent public health decisions based on the best available data and sound risk management. No one is faulting CDC for eventually course correcting, they are criticizing it for not having followed a more risk averse strategy from the get go and not having communicated their rationale honestly.

Imagine if FDA behaved like CDC; roll out the vaccines to general public with minimal trial, updating their decision on safety as more data came in. Scientific incrementalism doesn't suit all use cases, and this has nothing to do with infallibility.

> updating their decision on safety as more data came in.

That’s literally what they do. They paused when there were concerns over blood clots, then expanded access to more cohorts as more studies were completed.

"with minimal trial" is the operative word, which didn't happen. The point being there is a balance between waiting for perfect data and making risk based policies.

Do you actually remember this in real time? Do you remember at the beginning when everyone was wondering what to do and they said wear a mask and then they said not wear a mask and everyone around you was like, "What?? What is going on??"

And then a short while later they said wear a mask again. These things have real world ramifications. You can't just point to a snopes a year later and retain the context within which this trust destroying episode went down.

People have memories. They felt the frustration. They felt the betrayal.

And they have yet to recover from that. To dismiss that very real feeling of betrayal as "well, this is what snopes says" is rewriting history.

And, all of that comes on the heels of big tobacco, DDT, thalidomide, BPA, climate change, and then the new climate change, big pharma with their oxycontin and big medicine fleecing Americans and they won't even discuss medicare for all and we have to protect corporate profits over saving humanity?? Seriously??

And you dismiss all that with "science is a process."

Except the process has been completely dismissed as well. Science created the process that takes years to approve a new vaccine, all of that has been completely dismissed exactly when a brand new technology for creating vaccines has been created.

No part of this is science. This is politics. Period. 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine.

And so now it's somehow a different vaccine that we should all get? Now folks who don't want to get Biden's vaccine are science deniers?

This. is. not. science.

This is politics and a lot of people are refusing to get the vaccine purely because it's politics and NOT science.

Did you watch Fauci get destroyed up there this week? He's a liar. Period.

This is the key issue at hand, science has made us understand the virus and science has provided working vaccines.

Politics decide when a country/state gets to remove restrictions, this is where the heated arguments begin.

> People have memories.

And sometimes they have false memories. For example, regarding:

> 8 Months ago Kamala Harris herself said she would NOT get Trump's Vaccine.

What she said was that she would take the vaccine if the professionals said it was safe, not if Trump told her to take it [1]. A rather understandable level of skepticism given Trump's peddling of miracle cures such as hydroxychloroquine.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dAjCeMuXR0

How would a scenario exist where Trump would say take it, but professionals wouldn't be also saying it? How would it even exist? Professionals invented it.

> If research came out that changed the recommendations, well, that's how science works.

But that's not what happened. There was plenty of studies showing that masks could be effective before the pandemic started[1]. Here are a couple of Hacker news discussions from early March 2020 about studies done years earlier showing that mask use is effective[2][3]. And this article from right before the CDC changed it's recommendation, for good measure[4]: "Do you need a mask? The science hasn't changed, but public guidance might"

I'm not sure why it's so hard for people to consider the possibility that the CDC made a mistake.

[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN_5bdyysOeoOBX4p... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22460630 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22498941 [4] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/do-you-need-mask-...

Whether masks could be effective was never in debate. If you recall, they were concerned people would use the masks incorrectly and that could do more harm, as well as potential shortages in the supply chain and getting the masks to the most important workers. I don’t recall the CDC ever saying “masks do not work”

Fauchi, presumed spokesman for the CDC, came as close as possible to saying so, and/or was taken as such.

If that early statement can be justified by "fog of war" changing virus-related information at that time, then Fauchi should have allowed himself that complication. By offering "there were not enough masks available then" as a later explanation, he seems to have explained it essentially by saying he lied. In doing so he apparently threw away a substantial amount of his credibility, for many people. At worst a lying move; at best a lightweight move with lives at risk.

I don't think the CDC made a mistake - I think they intentionally "lied" for the sake of the public good, aka the Noble Lie.

Rather than saying "Hey lets hold off on buying masks so that we have enough for essential care workers" they instead said "do not buy masks because they aren't effective, or might even make risk of infection higher!"

Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning, a few months later he explained that this was wrong and the only reason he said masks are not necessary was because there weren't enough and private people were already stockpiling it anyway.

So people wore masks and life went on.

I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things

> I still don't understand why so many countries can't be more honest about these things

Depending on the jurisdiction and on your political opponents what the Swiss virus guy did is liable to send you to prison for intentionally lying and acting on that lie when employed as a public servant.

Most probably the political debate is less vicious in Switzerland and that won't happen to your virus guy, but where I live (EU country from Eastern Europe) that would have been very dangerous for him to do in regards to his freedom. I guess that's why a lot of politicians double down on their lies, because if they're caught there's a small chance of them going to prison for them, so why take the risk?

Interesting point. Guess it comes down to his words as the initial wording was more like 'in the current situation it is not necessary to wear masks' not trump's vision of 'masks don't work' which would have been an obvious lie.

In Belgium we had a third version: "masks are dangerous because people don't know how to adjust and wear them, they touch them too much (spreading the virus) and masks give a false sense of security that will lead to more contagions".

The chief of our CDC equivalent said he was shopping in supermarket without mask.

Then they admitted saying that because stocks were too low and wearing a mask was gradually made mandatory and they told us to make our own masks.

In Belgium, basically the same thing happened but at the same time they also said covid was just a flu.

So, a lot of trust lost.

Now I suspect them to do the same with the astrazeneca stock they have to liquidate.

Headlines this week said the indian variant is going to be the major one in Belgium.

In Denmark there were news stories about the real name of the AZ vaccine, just about the same time the bloodclot issue appeared.

I don't know anyone who uses the name Vaxzevria instead of the Astra Zeneca vaccine or just AZ.

The UK is about to open up fully in June but is now worried about the Indian variant (B.1.617).

Even though we in Denmark back in january was informed by health authorities that the English variant (B.1.1.7) was very worrying.

Truth is there will always be another variant, just look at this overview.

https://nextstrain.org/ncov/global

The trust in health authorities have been reduced greatly and have been replaced with mistrust to politicians motives, I'm sad to say.

Reading our politician's stance their motto seem to be that they didn't want to cause a panic. I always thought democracy strongly needed transparency to be effective so now I am left with questions and a shift in how I see our governing institutions.

IIRC that was not exactly how it happened. They said masks are not necessary if you only meet outside and keep your 1.5m distance. Leave the FFP masks for those who really need it. source from February 2020: https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20200225_04864971

Same thing here in Finland, in early months of the epidemics health officials said wearing masks has no benefit.

>> Our Swiss virus guy too told this 'lie' in the beginning

>> I still don't understand why sooooo many countries can't be more honest about these things

Interesting definition of honest. The fact is, all these large organisations believe in the "noble lie" which undermines their credibility.

They specifically recommended not wearing N95 masks, which were very scarce and in limited supply at the beginning of the pandemic. With the goal of maintaining the very limited supply for medical personnel, while cargo planes moved around the globe and production ramped up.

N95s also need to be vacuum fit IIRC for max efficacy

They still are.

> So yes it has lost its credibility.

I feel like this black and white, "you get one chance" kind of bridge burning is very unproductive. When you look at these agencies not as omniscient entities but as what they are - a collaborative effort of many individuals - then you allow for the evolution of understanding.

People can be wrong, especially in regards to more novel situations, so why should we view our institutions as any different? Yes having more eyes and varied perspectives means that it may make sense to expect something more reliable than an individual, but that doesn't make it infallible and IMO that's ok.

Organisations of professions should be held to extremely high standards. They are entrusted with more and in return given more privileges than any simple "collection of people".

as I said, it makes sense to expect more from governmental bodies but that still does not mean an expectation of infallibility. High standards and impossible standards are worlds apart.

It's not about being wrong, it's about intentionally misleading the public because you believe they are incapable of handling the truth (i.e. we have supply chain issues with masks because surprise outsourcing your supply chains to other countries has fatal flaws)

Genuine question, why did they not lose credibility when they started recommending them due to political pressure rather than “the science”? As I understand it, there is still very flimsy scientific backing for the effectiveness of masks.

AFAIK at best it depends upon number of layers, what kind of layers, fit, droplets (and size) vs. aerosols, humidity, interpersonal distance and dwelling time, and of course ventilation. Given the framing of the "mask debate" in the US with essentially no frequent or defining mention of face covering quality/qualities, essentially it seems like Cargo-cult science at the restrictions/policy level. There are people who meet the requirements essentially breathing through stretched or O(500um) single-layer mesh.

I have not looked closely enough at electret properties to know if meshes with larger pore sizes can really stop 0.06um virus particles. (Or 10nm according to this https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Size-of-SARS-CoV-2-C... )

For aerosols, cloth masks are an order of magnitude less effective than dipole charged N95 (which attract sub micron scale particles with a built-in electric charge in the fibers, it’s a high-tech process.)

> I personally follow the CDC guidelines

I don't believe you. Do you use a food thermometer when cooking food? Do you make sure to cook eggs until the yoke is firm? If you're a woman, do you make sure you never have more than 1 (alcoholic) drink in a particular day? Do you never eat rare steak?

People ignore almost everything the CDC says in their regular lives as the CDC is completely optimizing for health, not quality of life.

I definitely never eat rare steak. It does not tastes good.

Those are FDA guidelines, not CDC.

And the word is "yolk", not "yoke".

Found them on cdc.gov. e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/foods-linked-illness.html

Not sure why would you go and make a statement about me without any evidence (And btw yes to all your questions). Your point would be stronger if you don't target a person and maybe talk about the average consumer. My point exactly that a large chuck of the population don't follow CDC guidelines, if they did we collectively would be a healthier nation.

I'm quite surprised. I have never even heard of someone who did so I thought it was a good rhetorical point (and I think it would have been if you weren't an outlier).

The NSA and CDC are fundamentally different institutions. It does not make sense to treat them the same any more than it makes sense to treat NASA and the IRS the same...

They are not the same, but they are institutions with a lot of similarities (NSA, CDC, NASA, IRS). They largely receive funding the same way, and are answerable to the same people (congress, White House). There is some similarities to how the heads of these organizations are determined and how the heads of these organizations are fired.

In startup speak the organizations have the same VC and share many board members.

Yes both may be subject to some amount of political influence, but one is run by career infectious disease experts and one is run by career spies...

This broadly oversells their similarities.

Not only is the analogy questionable with board members, but it also carries the implication that they are essentially the same sorts of organizations. They are not.

If you really want to carry this analogy out further, you probably need to expand it so one is a traditional startup and the other a charitable non-profit, or something of the sort. Even if you did have the same people in charge (which again, questionably applicable here), the goals, transparency, and measures of success vary so wildly that I'm not sure it means that much.

The NSA in particular is part of the Department of Defense, a uniquely opaque federal entity. In general, federal agencies comply with accountability and transparency laws, but the DoD just doesn't.

Literally every organization is similar by criteria such as this.

If your criteria for conspiracy is "takes government money" then almost every company, country, and citizen is part of this conspiracy. People are in fact able to see nuance

This isn't really true. The actual chain of command is, of course, completely different people until you get to the President. But more importantly, intelligence agencies conducting covert actions don't reveal their activities to all of Congress. With respect to funding, only select committees with specific clearance get to see the real budget. Everyone else sees a line item that says "classified budget." As for oversight, see here: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3093

The actual committees:

https://intelligence.house.gov/ (23 members)

https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/ (14 members)

So that's 37 members of Congress they're accountable to, but not directly. If you read the actual law, it only says the "President" has to inform these committees of what the intelligence agencies are doing, and if they happen to do anything illegal, the President has to tell Congress (but only these 37 members).

Theoretically, the President is not above the law, but as we've seen in recent history, if the President is of the same political party as the majority party of Congress, they're not likely to actually enforce the law.

Practically speaking, all of Congress isn't going to care what all of the Executive Branch is doing all of the time given the limited number of hours in a day, which is why they they have committees, but at least in the case of the CDC, NASA, and IRS, if all 538 members of Congress request information, they have to give it to them. With the NSA, only 37 members of Congress are authorized to even receive information and only through the President.

The CDC is not law enforcement. The talent it attracts, its mission statement, its mode of operation are all different. The statements of fact they release pertain to public health with no human adversarial motives. The research they use to substantiate their claims can be peer reviewed, duplicated and critiqued.

Agreed. Though from experience and what I've read, they do have certain questionable commercial motives. Should call this out everytime.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/01/30/1017086/cdc-44-m... https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus-contracts/contra...

"The statements of fact they release pertain to public health with no human adversarial motives."

The CDC has knowingly lied about the efficacy of masks intending to trick the public to deprive them of useful medical gear. They were slow to identify the spread of covid as aerosol based, even after it was widely known. CDC guidance focused on "6 feet apart" instead of the importance of ventilation. The CDC temporarily halted the J&J vaccine unnecessarily, wasting time and eroding trust in vaccines generally. Early in the pandemic the CDC blocked hundreds of labs from doing their own covid tests in favor of flawed CDC tests that took substantially longer - again, this was at an absolutely time critical moment in the pandemic.

I have never really paid attention to the CDC until this pandemic. Now, I feel like they constantly make huge blunders and don't really deserve much trust. Even when they aren't lying to you, as they did regarding masks, they don't seem like they really know what they're doing.

The temporary halt seems necessary -- the usual treatment had bad effects, and the proper treatment needed to be disseminated to doctors and nurses.

If the CDC did the opposite in each of these cases, people would find fault in that. "They told the general public to wear masks early on, leading to mask shortages at hospitals!" And "When blood clots were reported in JnJ vaccine they did nothing to protect Americans!"

If they only had the choice to do one of two diametric opposite actions you might have a point. Of course, in reality, there is no such limitation. If the CDC had told the public masks work and research shows home made, cotton, or surgical masks are significantly better than nothing and we need to get our N95's to our medical frontline... Or, you know, been prepared with enough masks for medical frontline people. Doing nothing when blood clots were reported is a bad idea, doing analysis (ideally in advance) to know what levels of side effects should and shouldn't be cause for alarm would be a better idea.

False dichotomy. The CDC's only two choices weren't to say "everyone wear masks" or "masks don't work." They also could have told the whole truth and said "masks do work, but please hold off on wearing them until we're sure there's enough for first responders."

I do agree the "avoid a medical shortage" white lie did harm their credibility, but I know why they did it (I think). It will be a good case study for bioethics and public policy students.

I always assumed the virus was airborne, and they tended to say outside was safer than inside. I haven't looked at the new way they're phrasing it, but I need to look more.

The J&J vaccine halt was done for scientific reasons, and precisely to instill confidence in people that the CDC is acting in good faith and isn't going to sling something out there without knowing all they can about its effects. That you think they made the wrong decision is funny if it weren't sad.

Finally, and I don't know you, but I think it's cute how all the CDC haters/people saying Fauci is evil are the ones who through the pandemic have laughed at the virus and said vaccines are evil. Now here we have an instance of someone skeptical of the CDC because they didn't give enough warning about the virus and they eroded trust in vaccines!

> no human adversarial motives

It's a historical point of fact that this is untrue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

A doctor friend of mine told me, at the start of the pandemic, that they found it important to correctly follow Public Health advice whether or not they (an expert) agreed with all of it.

The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect at every moment.

Counterpoint: many atrocities have been made acceptable to the general population, in the name of "public health" (or at least, the greater public good).

For me, "the greater good" does not over-ride personal critical analysis.

The greater good in this case means following rules/mandates that do not in any way lead to an outcome of supporting atrocities. There is no valid critical analysis by which one concludes that not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing is a fight against atrocities.

Masks are a minor inconvenience but they affect millions. It adds up.

It adds up to something comparable to bringing up atrocities apt? I don’t see how. It’s not like the inconvenience of wearing a mask done billions of times leads to overall a massive inconvenience that becomes intolerable. This type of inconvenience is not additive. There is no compounding effect.

It adds up to significant unnecessary suffering. It’s clear to me that doing, e.g., human challenge vaccine trials was a much more cost-effective measure (nowadays just get the bloody vaccine and be done with pandemic), and masks are just a weak band-aid for which I have not seen much more evidence since the Slatestarcodex review (which called CDC on its bullshit very early: masks probably help a bit, but not much, and the evidence is weak either way), and they are being used first and foremost as a political signaling and psychological comfort device (remember the whole “masks more effective than vaccines” rhetoric).

Wearing a mask is not suffering. If you think this then you have a badly misconstrued idea of what the word suffering means.

Now you're just gaslighting.

You wrote:

It adds up to significant unnecessary suffering.

The it, I assume, refers to the topic at hand. Namely wearing masks. It does not in any way add up to suffering.

>There is no valid critical analysis by which one concludes that not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing is a fight against atrocities.

100 % disagree. The "social distancing" has caused state governments to take extreme measures closing down many business. The distancing has also put undo stress upon families. How many business have closed permanently? How many people are now suffering major depression due to these policies? How many people have committed suicide due to economic or relational hardship due to these polices? Masks and social distancing have done WAY more harm, than if we just ignored the virus and went about our lives.

Masks have not in any way contributed to the problems you cite. Suicide numbers are nowhere close to the total number of Covid dead. There has been economic hardship caused by social distancing and mental health problems too have been caused by social distancing. Masks contributed virtually zero to this. Far more people would have died had we not implemented the policies that were enacted. In no way is social distancing an atrocity even if one assumes your distorted view of the severity of the negative effects of social distancing is correct.

There's a fairly significant difference between the Tuskeegee Experiment, and having to wear a surgical facemask while in a supermarket.

> The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Also, even if this is true at some point, as more people adopt your mindset of conformity, it would become very valuable to manipulate, which is easy to do (Goodhart’s law).

Overwhelmingly we follow laws against public drinking, noise ordinances, littering, etc. How is following a mask mandate adopting a mindset of conformity that is different than following laws on littering? Consider the possibility that you have been manipulated to find outrage/concern/defiance over wearing a mask.

Those laws are fixed norms against doing concrete bad things. A norm of listening to any bullshit some authority figure spouses is not a fixed norm, but a meta-norm to respect any new norms created by that authority.

My media consumption is also extremely limited, and comes almost exclusively from left-centrist (HN top posts, Techmeme) sources.

You should probably read more sources if you think that news aggregators (and Hacker News in particular) are left of centre.

What are some left-centrist sources then?

In my country, laws compelling mask wearing outdoors in non-crowded spaces have been criticized by scientists (often the same ones advising the government on COVID) for various reasons, e.g.:

1) regardless of how you might think masks are unobtrusive, enough of the population will consider it annoying to wear a mask when jogging or cycling that they won't exercise. Even during this pandemic, public-health officials think exercise needs to be encouraged for long-term public health and less demand on the healthcare system.

2) The science shows that the risk of COVID spread outdoors in non-public spaces is negligible. If a health minister requires masks in spite of the science, he harms his own credibility. That means that the population might also start to ignore those measures that scientists say are essential.

Definitely wearing a mask indoors or in crowded outdoor spaces remains relevant. But there are legitimate grounds for criticism here and nuance, it isn't just inane outrage or defiance.

There are legitimate grounds of criticism but not legitimate grounds for talking about a mindset of conformity in the sense Siira meant.

> 1) ...annoying to wear a mask when jogging or cycling...

This has never stopped mandatory cycle helmet laws.

> 2) ... risk ... is negligible.

This has never stopped mandatory cycle helmet laws.

Although many people vocally disagree with cycle helmet laws, nobody has ever called it an 'atrocity' or said that complying with these laws was a 'mindset of conformity'. This is a ridiculous exaggeration.

> This has never stopped mandatory cycle helmet laws.

Actually it has, at least, it is one way the introduction of new laws in jurisdictions is opposed. There is research to suggest that mandatory cycle-helmet laws discourage healthful recreational cycling and commuting, and this has been used to suggest that the laws would ultimately be counterproductive from a public-health perspective.

> The importance of following the principles for public health is greater than the importance of the advice being unbiasedly perfect at every moment.

You're falsely conflating "principles for public health" with "public health advice". Principles for public health include protecting yourself against airborne diseases, which meant that anybody with some knowledge on the issue and ability to think for themselves should have disregarded "public health advice" when it contradicted "principles for public health". It also means we should be wary when "public health advice" doesn't line up with "principles for public health", and even more so when "public health advice" has been shown to be a deliberate lie when it suits the advice giver.

Following principles of public health is important, but you stretch too far and without basis to equate that to following public health advice. That kind of unthinking obedience to authority is how people commit atrocities by "just following orders"

> That kind of unthinking obedience to authority is how people commit atrocities by "just following orders"

That slippery slope must be lubed up real good for anyone to fall off it. Wearing masks, staying away from people, getting vaccinated, etc are far, far away from committing atrocities, and you know it. The point GP was making is in times of crisis, following advice from public health authorities, even if it changes, is the general best strategy. It’s extremely (that’s not even a strong enough word) unlikely they’ll be goading people into committing ‘atrocities’ when a novel pandemic is taking place.

"Do what you're told to do, critical thinking is bad for your health." LOL

Public health recommendations for the individual are quite different to secret surveillance programs.

We'd be in a very different conversation if the CDC was telling everyone "we need you to take this pill. No we're not telling you what's in it, or why you should take it and no one else in the world will be reviewing it."

I highly doubt many here take the CDC's word at face value. What appears as consensus is really a tragedy of the commons -- that one person thinks everyone else will consider the CDC's announcements as gospel that they express positivity and optimism, when what they are really celebrating is the re-opening of public life itself, i.e., that restaurants, etc. will open back up and feel "normal" again.

I've been following the CDC's messaging since the start of covid. They edited the same URL without info that there were updates or informing the public. The case numbers posted in Q1/Q2 of 2020 were an absolute mess which IMO missed out on an opportunity to instill trust in the public. Previous administration's anti-science stand might have contributed to that.

I'd imagine people aren't just being "stupid" when they decide not to trust these institutions but are simply cynical knowing the process can be hi-jacked by politics (regardless what side) every 4 years, and hardly any continuity due to the deep polarization. It doesn't make people trust in institutions when its core mission can be put upside down simply because a new administration comes to power.

I’m not American but reason to not blindly trust the institutions you list to act in your best interest are unfortunately factual. What comes to my mind when I hear:

- FBI: Hoover

- NSA: Snowden

- Police: Floyd

For the CDC I know only of the recommendation to not wear a mask at the beginning of the pandemic, and it’s debatable if it was a lie given the knowledge at the time (many other health agencies did the same recommendation in other countries at the time).

The CDC has a history of performing racist medical experiments on unwitting black people:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

The CDC (like the US police and military) also does not keep track of the number of people doctors kill. A 2016 study by Johns Hopkins estimates that iatrogenesis (deaths caused by doctors) kills 250,000 people per year, making it the third leading cause of death in the US.

>"The Johns Hopkins team says the CDC’s way of collecting national health statistics fails to classify medical errors separately on the death certificate. The researchers are advocating for updated criteria for classifying deaths on death certificates."

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su...

First, this is a straw man. Nobody is saying that the CDC's guidelines are infallible. They've been widely criticized for botching the Covid-19 crisis.

Second, the difference between CIA, FBI and CDC is that usually when the CDC makes a pronouncement, it is linked to some scientific basis. Unlike the CIA that can claim Iraq has 'weapons of mass destruction' based on vague evidence that nobody - except for a handful of legislators and the president - get to see, one can go and track the science behind a CDC's announcement relatively easily.

> I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and skepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance

I don't think that many people on this site are claiming that the American government is incompetent in their surveillance and SIGINT endeavors, from a strictly scientific/technical point of view. Rather that they're too competent and being too effective. Whether those technical capabilities should be applied in certain situations is a political question.

> CDC

I would hope that the majority of the site here, who do not have doctorate level degrees in epidemiology and virology, can realize the extent of education and experience that it takes to get a PhD in those fields. My primary complaint with the American government's handling of covid19 (600,000+ dead??!) is not with any incompetence on the part of the scientists, but the policy makers, in particular the previous administration. And the general populace's resistance to measures that could have halved the cumulative death toll. Additionally with state governments that have gone through multiple rounds of "we must reopen the economy!" to "oh shit! coronavirus is spreading again!"

To treat the government as a single cohesive entity moving with unified purpose is a fallacy.

I'll take it a step further:

To treat any organization larger than about a few hundred people that way is naive to the point of being stupid.

I think the CDC had a pretty good image based on... I dunno, Hollywood movies.

I don't think the way they handled all this shows them to be as competent as advised.

You can guess at what the motivations are for the CDC when they put out a statement.

They generally match what Id expect them to be saying, so it seems trustworthy enough, but it is confirmation bias. When they'll say something I don't expect, I think bit more about it and try to figure out why there's a mismatch.

The FBI and NSA and the like don't speak publically, and when they do, they're trying to cover up wrongdoings

The NSA and FBI are built around secrecy and preventing leaks. Their opaqueness is a huge part of their advantage. They keep information from the general public as a rule. Everyone involved is vetted and knows the punishment for insubordination.

The CDC is for the benefit of the public. Peoples trust in them is needed in order to be effective. It is pretty transparent in that you can usually look at the data they are using to support their guidelines. If they were keeping something secret the chance of a leak is much greater and there is data from other countries that can be used to corroborate their conclusions.

> I think it's worth noting that among the demographics that frequent this site there is ostensibly a deep distrust and scepticism of the American government on matters of surveillance, and law enforcement.

Snowden's leak was barely a blip on the radar. And it was a proof of how deep the surveillance went. Nobody cared. Patriot act - nobody cared.

People are addicted to outrage and conspiracies not actual reality.

I m in Hong Kong and I must be living in the definition of a conspiracy against me, but I still dont think most of the COVID measures here have been to shut me up or to prevent me to exercise political freedom. There simply is no choice, we must vaccinate, we must help each other, we must abstain from yelling loudly for a while.

Possibly the aftermath will be the crime, to continue the measure when there is no need, but we reached 200 death in a megalopolis of 8M people only because we shut the fuck up a bit and synchronized our behaviour.

In a word, I dont think the american CDC main goal is to profit or enjoy a sadist power bath... at worst, they re honestly misguided, I think.

As the Atlantic noted recently [0] there are many who see masks and safety measures due to COVID as part of their political identity. Likes guns to some, the masks, more critically the forcing of others to wear masks and abide by certain precautions, has become a weapon in politics. My distrust of the masks, and friction at being forced to wear one, really comes from that distrust of those who are forcing me; they are forcing me for politics, not for health and safety.

I could comprehend annoyance, but what political gain do you expect them to obtain once you wear your mask in full submission ? At best that you dont get sick, at worst that you dont contaminate other. I really dont see the link between "we must provide an advantage on the job market to black people", a political side we can disagree on, and "wear a mask", something that bring nobody any pleasure nor comfort nor advantage...

What political gain does the Islamic Republic of Iran get when it forces women to wear head coverings?

What political gain does a ruling clique get when e.g. they force people to admit "2+2=5"?

About the falsity of "two plus two equals five", in Room 101, the interrogator O'Brien tells the thought criminal Smith that control over physical reality is unimportant to the Party, provided the citizens of Oceania subordinate their real-world perceptions to the political will of the Party; and that, by way of doublethink: "Sometimes, Winston. [Sometimes it is four fingers.] Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once".[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_%2B_2_%3D_5

With that logic, the compulsion to send your kids to school in the USA is on shaky ground.

Is not the US education system very ideological?

Among the US citizens (mostly LA area) which I know it was not uncommon to hear how they "love America", similarly to how Christian believers "love Jesus".

Moreover from what I understand the local historical textbooks are censoring displeasing moments from the time of oppression of the black community.

I'm far from an anarchist yet I would take my kids out of the system if I found a meaningful alternative which would not cost a fortune.

The US education system is inconsistent, so you can't really generalize. I love America, but I'm also aware of its flaws and don't have any illusions about it being perfect or anything like that. I was also taught plenty of material about the darker sides of American history: slavery, mistreatment of natives, etc. Similarly I learned a lot about 'family health', science, etc. However some schools might lean more towards non-scientific teachings or leave out unsavory material depending on what school you inspect.

Your tone makes me wonder if you're German; having studied German for many years, we learned about how Germany has somewhat of a complex around country pride given certain historical events. My school system had people from over a hundred countries and love for your country was almost universal, including to the extent of wearing clothing with the national flag on it like some Americans do

Local history curriculums never push into anything that would be politically uncomfortable locally.

This is usually done by requiring certain things be taught in great detail in order to preclude time being spent on other things.

What about the rest of the people around the world wearing masks, are they treading on the rights of people to not infect their loved ones?

Why is it political here, when it is a matter of global public safety?

First off, you didn't link this supposed article that claims what you're arguing.

But I just don't believe it. If the Atlantic published that, they sought out the small minority of people who believe that in order to make waves.

Wearing a mask is not a political statement. It is just a prudent measure you can take to help protect yourself and -- often more importantly -- others. It isn't a guarantee that you won't get (or give someone) COVID, but it can help, when combined with other things like social distancing.

It's funny, because my perception is the opposite of yours: that people who refuse to wear masks have turned that into a political identity. That somehow refusing to wear a mask is the patriotic, freedom-loving thing to do. When the fact is that they're just selfish, and view that refusal as marking themselves as part of a tribe.

I see friends of mine who, having celebrated the science behind the CDC pro-mask recommendations for the last 12 months, be suddenly appalled at the change in recommendations and seeming to want to cling the disrupted life a little longer for reasons known mostly to them.

Probably this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/05/liberal...

It's not just the mask wearing either. It's things with much more substantial actual harm, like keeping schools closed well past the point it was unjustified, along with the belief that anyone who won't deny kids education is evil and a completely inaccurate understanding of the level of risk to them.

Also, you're politicizing mask wearing right here in your comment: "It's funny, because my perception is the opposite of yours: that people who refuse to wear masks have turned that into a political identity. That somehow refusing to wear a mask is the patriotic, freedom-loving thing to do. When the fact is that they're just selfish, and view that refusal as marking themselves as part of a tribe." That you think of anyone who doesn't wear a mask as an evil, selfish right-winger is 100% politicisation.

Decades ago, I heard similar arguments against restricting smoking in restaurants or public areas. To smoking proponents, smoking in line at the drug store was basically a constitutional right, and if you didn’t like cigarette smoke, just don’t smoke. It didn’t register that filling the air with cigarette smoke could encroach on the liberty of others.

Just because the CDC/Government says to do something doesn't mean you do the opposite?

As a "side read" I started "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" in Dec 2020, and finished a couple or so weeks ago. The book is thorough. It covers history, political systems, individual psychology, sociology, and more. The context being (data-based) surveillance as a means to nudge and manipulate behavior - individually and masses. While it focuses on big tech, it's lessons are in fact universal.

In any case, stepping back from the pandemic and other personal biases, the tactics and narrative of the last 15+ months begin to feel like some new (covert?) form of totalitarianism.

- There's an evil enemy that must be intricated for the good of all.

- There's hyperbolic fear and widespread death. The deaths are real, but data is cherry-picked in a propaganda-y sort of way. Correlation is more important than causation.

- There is a lone figure-head we must promise our allegiance and dedication to. Signs on front yards, t-shirts, etc. Note: No one voted for Fauci. And while he's certainly accomplished it's difficult to imagine one single opinion - in a cloud of unknowns - could carry so much authority.

- Churches were closed, as were other assemblies. The State persists. It's powers broader.

- There is a tide of "The State knows best (your rights and liberty be damned.)" Do as you're told or you will be marginalized or (socially) silenced. As long as you cooperate and follow the gov's you will be safe.

Please try not to knee-jerk. The above list are simple facts.

All that aside, for anyone still trusting of the CDC it's best to check the data on causes of death prior to this pandemic. Make note of how many of those conditions are preventable. Nrxt track down the Covid death's comorbidies - which are rarely mentioned - that killer Covid pairs well with. To say Covid killed someone who was (e.g.) morbidly obese is misleading. It's called morbidly obese for a reason.

Ultimately, Covid 19 is a symptom. It's a symptom of our heath personally and as a society. It's a symptom of bigger and broader forces "at war" over who is in control.

Yeah, sounds like madness. But please keep in mind, so did totalitarianism.

https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/living-und...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Surveillance_Capi...

p.s. There's a chapter in Adam Grant's book "Think Again" on jabs, and how to go about convincing someone to think again about their anti vax ideas. What we've been doing for Covid is off target. Yet why is that? Adam Grant knows something the whole of the USA readership does not?

One saves lives, the others ruin and take lives.

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